He Can't See It
by Brother Bludgeon
Summary: Xander's good deed doesn't go unpunished, leaving him trapped in Sunnydale High way after hours. A chance meeting in the dark lets him see someone when no one else would. Response to a challenge by dogbertcarroll
1. He'd Give Up All His Comfort

_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ was created by Joss Whedon

_**He Can't See It  
Chapter 1: He'd Give Up All His Comfort**_

_3:06 PM_

The question hung in the air between them, raising the tension in the recently relaxed atmosphere to staggering levels. His inquisitor stared up at him, but he couldn't take his eyes off the subject of their discussion as she descended the final steps towards the meticulously detailed company car that represented a weekend of quality time with her estranged father.

"Willow, how can you…?" he trailed off, mentally recalling the petite blonde Slayer in full vampiress game face. "I mean, that's really bent! She was…"

Those hypnotic yellow eyes that had looked at him with raw, burning hunger. Fangs gleaming in the dim light as she snarled in attack. A deep, almost purring, growl that wormed its way into the little nooks and crannies of his brain where traces of the savage Serengeti still lingered, waiting to pounce on something just as wild and passionate and…

"… grotesque," he finished, weakly.

"Still dug her, huh?"

Miraculous as it may sound, Xander Harris was actually stunned into silence by the frank words of his longtime best friend. Some part of him registered the understanding mixed with a pinch of disappointment in her voice and, in the interest of lightening the mood, the silence was broken.

"I'm sick, I need help."

"Don't I know it," his redheaded companion responded in kind, laughing it off as she followed him away from the front steps of Sunnydale High.

Xander shrugged his backpack a little higher onto his shoulder as he slowed his steps, letting Willow catch up. The pair settled into a comfortable pace and started on the familiar route towards home. They weren't exactly neighbors, but living on the same side of town meant that they could still walk home together and not have to part ways until the last couple blocks. After the day they'd had, it would be a welcome slice of normalcy.

"So, a Buffy-free weekend," he said, earning a shy smile from the girl when he didn't sound especially disappointed. "Haven't had one of those in awhile. So what's the plan? I'm up for anything that doesn't involve clowns or nudity. Unless we're talking female nudity, then it's negotiable."

"Really?" squeaked Willow before she could stop herself. "I-I mean, we could go to the Bronze. Oh, or the movies! I don't think there are any clowns at the movies."

"How soon she forgets McHale's Navy," the boy sighed, mock wistfully. "But still, the old multiplex doesn't sound too bad. I think Fifth Element's still out. I don't know what it is about that girl…"

"Mila Jovovich?"

"Bless you," deadpanned Xander. "Anyway, back to that girl, I don't know what it is about her in those previews but, wow. You know?"

"Maybe it's the red hair?" offered Willow, as casually as she could force herself to be.

"Could be. Can't say it doesn't add to the sex appeal," he said, failing to notice that his friend's smile and her blush were steadily growing. "But I think it may have more to do with all that gymnastic alien butt-kickery she gets up to."

Willows face darkened a bit, this time having nothing to do with a blush, while Xander idly wondered if a Slayer could do all those stunts without the wires and digital effects. Barely thinking about it, he chuckled to himself and put an arm around her waist, pulling them hip to hip and letting her blush make a comeback in a big way.

"Besides," continued the unfazed teen. "What do I need another gorgeous redhead for, right? So, you buy the popcorn, I slip the usher five bucks so he'll let us sneak in the back exit?"

The "gorgeous" comment was still bouncing around Willow's pleasantly addled brain when the activity managed to shake loose a memory that brought her down to reality.

"Xander…" she whined as only a sixteen-year-old girl could. "I can't."

"Oh, come on," urged her friend. "You know no movie is worth what they charge for tickets. Besides, they more than make up for it at the concession stands. I mean, did you ever wonder why they call it 'concessions'? You concede a little piece of your soul every time you shell out eight bucks for a box of Sour Patch Kids!"

"No, I mean I really can't," Willow pouted, helplessly. "I have to go to my grandmother's for Shabbat dinner… we're staying 'til Sunday."

"Oh," he let go of her and slowed to a stop, stopping her as well when she saw that hiding his disappointment didn't come quite as easily this time. "That's nice. So, what, three whole days of bra-burning anecdotes and rants about George Bush?"

"No, not Grandma Esther. We're visiting Grandma Marnie from dad's side," explained a glum Willow. "So, it'll be more stuffing me with food 'cause I'm too skinny and trying to get my dad to move us all into my great uncle's kibbutz outside Tel Aviv."

"Grandma Marnie? Yeesh," he sympathized. "I'm just relieved she never showed up during this whole thing with Billy and the daytime night terrors."

"You have nightmares about my grandmother?" she half-scoffed.

"She hit me in the head with a soup ladle!" Xander reminded her, absently rubbing a spot on his scalp.

"Xander, that's not fair," she said, with a poorly hidden smirk that told him she wasn't all that offended. "She was upset that you were using your yarmulke to play Jewish Pirate."

"I thought you loved Long Jon Silverman!" gasped her friend, eyes wide at the betrayal.

"Of course I do, you know that. Especially after he totally saved my bat mitzvah after your parents…" the playful look disappeared as she silently cursed her thoughtless words. "I mean…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he cut in mercifully, wanting to dwell on the unpleasant equation of his parents plus an open bar equaling one giant embarrassment. "Who doesn't love a Jewish Pirate? Yarrrr! Ah_oy Vey_, me mateys! We set sail on the L'_Chai_ seas!"

The transformation was complete: an accent that was a vague mix of Treasure Island and Long Island, a staggered posture to simulate a peg leg, a squinted eye for the missing one he normally covered with his yarmulke, and a curled finger for a hook hand. A hook hand that launched itself at the young girl's unprotected ribs. Too late, she tried to back away, but the dread pirate Silverman takes no prisoners.

A few seconds later, Willow was trying to catch her breath as she let the last batch of giggles escape. Suddenly, she looked up, her face serious and not a little worried.

"'Hath not a Jew eyes'?"

"Aye, most do, Willselleh" answered Xander, still in character. "But I lost one of me own and am forced to wear this round, tastefully embroidered eyepatch…"

"No, Merchant of Venice for Ms. Miller's English class!" she snatched his hook hand so he couldn't launch a second attack and looked him dead in his non-squinty eye. "We're supposed to have read it all by Monday _and _turn in an outline so we can have the final paper ready by the end of the week."

"What are you so freaked out about? We'll just do what we did all this year, spend the weekend before going over it so you can translate all that Shakespeare gibberish for…" it sunk in even as he said the words. "… But we can't do what we did all this year. 'Cause you're gonna be at Grandma Marnie's. Willow, I can't read this stuff! The only word I remember from when we read Hamlet was 'bunghole' and that's because I giggled like an idiot every time I saw it!"

His eyes, wide with panic, started to dull slightly. The corners of his tightly pressed lips were twitching like mad and it looked like it was taking every muscle in his body to keep his shoulders still.

"Oh, just do it, already," groaned Willow. "You know you want to."

The resolve held for another half second before he jerked his hand from hers and used it to cover his mouth as it erupted in uncontrolled snickering.

"I'm sorr-heehehee… Sorry," he said, finally. "It's a funny word."

"Okay, listen to me," her hands were on his upper arms and her face was serious. "I can make up an extra outline while I'm at my grandma's, but you have to read the whole thing. I mean it. The **whole** thing. I'll call you tomorrow night and you better be at least be up to Act Three. Do you have your copy with you?"

"Locker," he answered quickly, not wanting to test the patience of arm-grippy Willow.

"Go get it," she released him so she could point an authoritative finger. "I have to get home. We need to drive all the way out to Calabasas before sunset. Well? Go!"

She made a shooing gesture and he mumbled an agreement before practically tripping over himself to run back to the school. He was about fifty feet away when he heard her calling him again.

"Xander, come back!"

He skidded to a stop on the dry grass and ran back just as fast until he was standing in front of her again, awaiting further orders.

"Goodbye hug?"

Her innocent little girl tone and doe-eyed expression was enough to make him remember who he was talking to. Xander was someone who tended to defer to the people he considered experts in their fields, be it Buffy on patrol, Giles in matters of demonology, or now with Willow and homework. Laughing, he scooped her up and spun her around once before holding her a few inches off the ground and giving her a squeeze.

"Have a good trip," he said, warmly. "I'll be here when you get back."

She didn't let go right away when he set her back down, content to leave her face buried in the crook of his neck a little longer. He didn't rush her, rubbing light circles between her shoulder blades until she was ready to pull back. Then, with a last smile between them, they headed off in opposite directions.

_3:13 PM_

Xander navigated the main hall of Sunnydale High without much urgency, not even bothering to hurry past Cordy and her Cordettes' little drama queen bitching session.

"It's like a conspiracy or something!" screeched a voice that could make you forget the supermodel class face it came from. "Three hundred _freaking_ dollars for one bottle of skin cream and it barely lasts two months. I mean of course I could afford cases of the stuff, but that is so not the point. Nobody screws Cordelia Chase and gets away with it!"

"That's right! At least, not without springing for dinner," he chipped in, walking backwards so he could face them. "Or a ride in any car with a Blue Book value high enough to feed the nation of Rawanda. Or a .315 batting average, minimum."

Thoroughly pleased with himself, he spun back around and continued on with a slight spring in his step as he listened to the harpies toss their insults at his back. The high faded the moment he caught sight of his locker. Shoulders sagging, he went about getting it open as he thought about his grim immediate future.

"An entire weekend of Shakespeare…" he groaned, softly. "If I have to waste my time with some guy that died four hundred years ago, he could at least have the decency to be a vampire. Hey, maybe I should cruise the mausoleums, find some neck-sucker old enough to understand this garbage."

His fingers froze on the locker's dial. With a pathetic sigh, he let his head thump against the smooth surface.

"And this is why I can't be by myself for this long," griped the lone teen. "I start talking all kinds of crazy… sort of like right now with the talking to myself. Oh, this is shaping up to be a super fun weekend already."

He straightened, and then winced when he realized that he'd forgotten where he left off on his combination.

"Yep," spinning the dial a few times to reset it, he started over. "Nobody could possibly be having a crappier day than me."

Screaming like a co-ed in a slasher flick, Jonathan Levinson ran down the same hallway as fast as he could. As fast as he could while desperately trying to hold the tattered remains of his shirt and shorts together, anyway. Xander watched, stunned and slightly disgusted, as the height-challenged blur of pale pudge ducked around the next corner just as his pursuers burst into the hall after him.

Jimmy DeLuca, Vic Sloane, and Justin Adams were oddities, even for Sunnydale High. Relics from a bygone era, a time of leather jackets, sock hops, and overused hair products. These modern-day greasers probably wouldn't last five seconds against real L.A. gangbangers but, in a little high school most would consider safe if you ignored the demonic activity, they pretty much had the run of the place. Xander, himself, had been hassled a few times, which made watching the nightmare-induced hallucination of Jimmy's mother smother him with mortifying amounts of affection all the more satisfying.

What they were doing chasing the pint-sized Poindexter, he wasn't sure. Then he remembered something he'd seen while combing the halls for cand… er… clues. Apparently, Vic's worst nightmare had something to do with his favorite punching bag growing about three feet and putting on two hundred some odd pounds of solid muscle. Unfortunately, Jonathan's Incredible Hulk phase ended with the rest of the weirdness and with it any chance of defending himself against angry tough guy wannabes. Strange, though, that his clothes didn't go back to normal.

'_Chalk it up to the Hellmouth picking on the little guy_,' Xander thought bitterly.

Now, Xander had a choice to make. He could turn around and open his locker, allowing him to snatch up his copy of Merchant of Venice in an effort to get a head start on his forced weekend plan of homework, or he could catch up with the Hunt for Nerd October so he could stand up to three guys that had handed him his own butt more times than he'd ever admit. The smart choice was fairly obvious.

He didn't bother picking his bag up when he took off after them. After all, anybody who'd steal a decades-old Salvation Army reject backpack that smelled vaguely of rotten deli meat and shame probably needed it more than he did.

_3:14 PM_

He shouldn't have been surprised at how long it was taking to catch up with them. Really, it was all about motivation. It wasn't fear and self-preservation moving his feet, or even the bullies' natural sadistic tendencies and near samurai-level need to save face. For him it was… was…

Okay, he'd have to figure that one out pretty soon. Hopefully sometime before he found them. Running past the mouth of one of the lesser used corridors, Xander skidded to an ungraceful stop and turned.

There he was. Scared, almost naked, and cornered in a dead-end hallway.

"Dead-end?" he wondered, again out loud, but thankfully quiet. "Nah, too negative. Then again, the only other word for it is _cul-de-sac_ and now is definitely not the time to start thinking like the French."

He took a step forward. Heavy. Deliberate.

Another. Then another.

Then he stomped.

Twice.

"Oh for the love of…" he shook his head in frustration at the blatant disrespect for a cool, subtle entrance. "Hey, Jon-o! What's up? These guys your fan club or something? Judging by the shredded duds, I'd say they all wanted a piece of you."

That one got their attention.

"Harris?" Apparently Jimmy wasn't used to interruptions, especially from a frequent victim. "This ain't about you. It's between us and him. Turn around and walk away."

"Geez, Jon-o, what'd you do?" he asked the cowering nerd directly, totally ignoring the others. "Refuse to go back with them to 1955 in old Doc Brown's De Lorean? Does the thought of malt shops and poodle skirts scare you, 'cause I know it scares me."

This time it was Vic, dropping the tattered collar of Jonathan's polo shirt to turn and get directly in Xander's face.

"Hey, you look at us when we talk to you!" the taller bully bit out. "Either you leave, or we make you leave!"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Xander said, hands raised to chest level in mock surrender. "You guys really love your 50's hot-rod flicks. That doesn't give you the right to steal the dialogue. Why not try something a little more modern? I hate to break it to you guys but, 'Grease?' No longer the word."

Unbeknownst to him, a door on the far wall cracked open just a little wider, revealing more of the blackness within. It was unbeknownst because the only thing he beknew at that moment was the pain in his back as the three of them slammed him into the bank of lockers behind him. Jimmy pulled his sunglasses further down his nose so he could look Xander eye to eye.

"How's that for modern, geek?" he sneered, digging a knuckle into the trapped teen's ribs. "I'd hate to think we weren't performing up to your high standards."

"Oh, you wanted a performance review?" asked Xander, strained but defiantly upbeat. "Well, in that case, I can probably think of a few things off the top of my head. Run. First, obviously, there's the outfits. _Run_. I know, I know, leather jackets have a timeless quality. _Run, Jon-o_. But, there's timeless and then there's just plain outdated. _Jonathan, __**run**_. And don't get me started on the sunglasses indoors thing. I mean, seriously, do you really want to be that guy _for the love of Pete, Jon-o, why the __**hell**__ aren't you __**RUNNING!?**_"

Behind the four, against all reason, Jonathan was just standing there, staring. His expression held shock and his arms hung loosely at his sides, letting his shredded shorts sag down even further and reveal an unsettling amount of his He-Man and the Masters of the Universe briefs.

"W-why are you doing this for me?" he asked, surprise blinding him to his present situation.

"Honestly? It was either this or homework," the taller boy answered, before his features took on the all the characteristics of someone bound and determined to do something stupid.

As the leather-bound tormentors tried to process his response, Xander burst into action pulling all three into a crude headlock, with his right arm around two greasy heads and his left around the neck of the third. They started struggling against him instantly, confusion making them just as likely to hurt each other as they were him.

"Now get out of here!" he shouted over their protests, looking Jonathan straight in the eye. "'Cause I bet ya they're still pissed after they're done with me."

That was enough for Mr. Levinson as he squeaked out a barely audible "thanks" before he turned and hauled ass, hopefully to someplace that sold pants in dwarf sizes. He was already out of sight by the time Jimmy and Vic overpowered Xander's right arm and together they roughly yanked him off of a slowly purpling Justin.

"Okay, Harris," Jimmy had a hand on either side of Xander's head, making it look like he either wanted to make out or, more likely, rip the whole thing clean off his shoulders. "I don't know where you got the balls to do that to us, but I think you need to be reminded what happens to losers who play hero."

"It ends of up comically backfiring in a way that no one gets hurt but everybody still learns a valuable lesson?" he asked, hopefully.

In less than five seconds, Xander was off his feet. Two thugs had a shoulder each, the remaining one holding his legs, as they lifted him to chest height.

"I'm serious guys, I think the valuable lesson thing works!" he struggled frantically, hating that they were overpowering him so easily.

"Alright, I got your lesson, hero," answered Vic with a too-wide grin, as he gestured with his head. "Come on, get him over this way!"

They shuffled across the hall to the door, not bothering to notice as it seemed to be closing slightly the closer they got. With his free hand, Vic yanked the door open. Seeing that it was empty and, more importantly, filthy, laughed and held up three fingers. After a quick look around, Jimmy nodded and let out a short laugh himself.

"One…"

Lowering him to about waist level, the hoodlum triplets let Xander's body swing back before guiding him back towards the door.

"Two…"

"Whoa, hang on," the suspended teen panicked as he saw where he was headed. "Let's talk about this a second! I admit it, maybe that Grease thing was in poor ta--"

"Three!"

Xander cried out when he felt the uncomfortable weightlessness that goes with being tossed like a rag doll, but the sound was cut off by the heavy thud of his forehead slamming into a dust covered sink. Catching the corner of the sink, he spun in mid-air and ended up on his back in a groaning heap.

"Oh man, did you just see that?" a startled Justin asked his friends.

"Priceless," Vic answered, clearly more amused than worried.

"Guys, what if he got a concussion or something?" the blond made to go and check when Jimmy stopped him.

"No worse than he deserves," was the dark response. "That kind of disrespect on our own turf, it serves him right. Let's get out of here."

With that, Jimmy flipped up the collar on his jacket and stormed off. To his credit, Justin hesitated a little before following. Vic stood there a little longer, enjoying his view of the Good Samaritan lying there in pain.

"See ya on Monday, Harris."

The last thing Xander saw before he passed out was Vic slamming the door shut. The last thing he heard was a rattling sound, like someone trying to work a locked doorknob. The strange thing was that it seemed to be coming from the inside.

_9:42 PM_

He awoke to darkness. That's not entirely true. It was dark when he woke up, but that wasn't the first thing he'd noticed. More accurately, you could say he awoke to massive skull pain. Bringing a hand up to his forehead, he traced a finger around a lump that he would've sworn was the size of half a grapefruit. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this bad off, definitely not since January. Considering that January was the month he started battling the undead, it literally added insult to injury when he remembered that he was in the shape he was because of three completely normal humans, leather fetishes notwithstanding.

He was shaken out of his self-pity by a low shuffling noise to his left. Sitting up as quickly as he could, he was reminded why people with head injuries shouldn't try to sit up quickly. Flat on his back again, he scooted away from the sound as fast as he could, feeling behind him for a wall and pressing himself up against it when he found one.

"Who's there?" he asked the darkness, voice rasping a little from a dry throat. "Who are you?"

For a few seconds, nothing. But, before he could speak again…

"Can… can you see me?"

The voice was fragile, fearful and hopeful with a strange uncertainty, a hesitancy that could only come from lack of practice speaking. It was female, and there was a pleasant richness to it. The way he'd describe it was like thick hot chocolate. That is, it's how he would have described it if he hadn't been freaking out.

"No, no I can't see you… Oh, my God! I'm blind. I'm BLIND!"

"You're not blind," the voice assured him, taking on a slightly bitter tone. "It's just dark in here."

"How do you know?" he countered. "You're not the one with the head wound, here. I could be blind in the dark, did you ever think of that?"

There was a cross between a growl and a sigh before the voice spoke up again, this time clearly annoyed.

"I'm telling you, you're not blind. Look over there, to your right. You can see a little crack of light coming in under the door."

Sure enough, when Xander looked, he could make out a single thin line of dark blue cutting through the black. Not nearly enough to see by, but more than enough to prove that he wouldn't have to beg his parents to spring for a seeing-eye dog.

"Oh, heh… sorry. Just a little unhealthy paranoia on my part," he offered, weakly, before a question formed in his mind. "So… where are we?"

"The spare janitor's closet," was her prompt answer.

He couldn't help himself.

"We keep spare janitors?"

"They put in a new janitor's closet in North Hall two months ago," she explained solemnly, but he thought she might have been holding back the laughter on purpose. "That one is the main one and this one's the spare. Not that anybody uses it."

"Why don't they use it?" he asked, not sure why he was dreading the answer.

"The door's broken. The lock sticks when you shut it, and they can only unlock it from the outside."

Ah, hence the dreading.

"No… Oh, no…" he scooted towards that line of light, hands searching until they found the doorknob, but it wouldn't give. "No, no, no, no… HELP! We're trapped in here! ANYBODY!?"

He pounded on the discouragingly solid door as he shouted. His whole body jumped when he felt something grab his wrist but, thankfully, he was able to preserve some small amount of his manliness by not shrieking at the noticeably dainty hand. Just the same, the owner of the no longer disembodied voice jerked her own hand away when she felt him flinch.

"I already tried that, right when we first got locked in," she explained, clearly not thrilled at the situation. "Nobody came. It's been more than five hours, probably closer to six. There's nobody here this late at night. We're stuck until the janitor comes in the morning. He doesn't use this closet anymore, but he still has to clean in front of it. We'll hear it and start yelling for him to let us out."

Xander let out his own bastardized mixture of sigh and growl and slumped back against the wall, muttering despondently about a ruined weekend that'd been pretty crappy from the get go. He was a good two minutes into a very angry run-on sentence when he realized he'd been the only one saying anything. As a young man whose two best friends were women, he recognized the silent treatment when he heard it. Or didn't hear it… whatever. Still, not of the good.

"But enough about me," he spoke up, louder and much more friendly. "How'd you end up in here? Not that I'm complaining. If I woke up alone in here, I probably would've totally freaked. Luckily, you were here and I only partially freaked. There is a difference."

"I was hiding," her answer was plain, not angry but she still had her shields up, metaphorically speaking.

"Hiding? So, you remember all that weird stuff that happened today?" he asked, then continued when he heard her mumbled yes. "Wow. I wasn't sure if anybody else did. After it was all over, people were just walking around like everything's normal. Well, not Jonathan. And not you either, I guess. Was it real bad? Your nightmare, I mean."

Not a word. Either it was really bad, or it was back to the silent treatment. He decided to try another tactic. One that, honestly, he should have used much earlier. Then again, considering his upbringing, it was amazing he had any manners at all.

"Sorry, let's start over," he said, gently. "Alexander Harris. Call me Xander."

"I know who you are," she snapped, with a resentment that caught him totally off guard. "We've only gone to the same school since kindergarten. I've been in, like, half of your classes. Not that you'd ever notice me. Oblivious, self-obsessed sheep, blindly following whatever shiny…"

"Okay, I think I get the gist," he cut in on her, mid-rant, not wanting her to get any angrier. "People don't notice you, they don't pay attention, and I'm one of them. Am I close?"

She didn't answer, but she did stop her grumbling. She'd started pacing half way through, but stopped that as well. He took her silence as an invitation to continue.

"It'd be easy to make excuses. Up until this year, it was always just me and my little tight knit group. Jesse McNally and Willow. Heck, sometimes it was just the two of us and we didn't even let Willow hang out. I mean, it's what you do in this town, right? You make too many friends, one of them ends up missing and you never see them again. But that's not good enough. I'm sorry. I don't know if it's worth anything or not, but I'm sorry if I ever ignored you. It wasn't on purpose. Believe me, if I had the ability to ignore anybody on purpose, the only time I'd ever see Cordelia would be flashbacks, you know like the vets had after Vietnam? Just substitute 'Charlie' with 'Cordy'."

And then he heard it. Something less than a laugh and yet so much more.

Girly giggle.

"Marcie," she said.

"Marcie?"

"Xander," her answer.

"Marcie," he tried out the name he'd managed to worm out of her, and found that he liked it. "Nice to meet you… again."

"It's like you said, right?" she offered, shyly. "Let's start over."

"Well, alright!" he beamed, a smile clear in his voice, before another thought crossed his mind. "Uh… I think this is the part when people usually shake hands but, with the pitch black closet and the you being a girl thing, there's a lot of ways I could screw… that… up?"

He could feel the feather-light caress of her fingertips on his cheek. Slowly, cautiously they made their way down to his jaw line, to his neck, down across his chest to his shoulder. They traced lines all the way down his bicep, forearms, wrist, until finally the delicate fingers wrapped around his larger hand. With a languid motion she brought his hand up, then down. Up, then down.

"Whuh…" Xander breathed, his voice suddenly thicker. "Good handshake."

_10:04 PM_

"You're serious? Never?"

"Never ever."

"Not even once?"

"I don't even get why anybody would."

"Oh, now I know you're lying."

"Okay yeah, maybe I get the _why_," Xander admitted, grudgingly. "But the second she opens her mouth it's like she projects these waves of anti-sexy. And that was before I heard her sing. Oh God, she sang The Greatest Love of All and, I swear, for about an hour after that I was firmly against the idea of love. Being in love, falling in love, I almost beat up the captain of the tennis club because I heard him say he just beat somebody forty-love."

"Wow," Marcie mused, a short laugh later. "I bet you're the only guy in school that wouldn't kill to be with Cordelia Chase."

"Hey, you're talking to one of the founding members of the We Hate Cordelia Chase Club."

"Get out!" exclaimed the girl, gleefully. "There's a club? Where do I sign?"

"Doesn't exactly work that way, we were never much for contracts and whatnot," he explained. "We were seven and a half at the time, and you know how seven-year-olds get about paperwork. You ever try getting one of them to file your taxes, forget about it."

"We?"

"Me and Wills. Otherwise known as Madam President Rosenberg. I was the Treasurer."

"The Treasurer?" she all but scoffed.

"Hey, Treasurer is a vital office in any fledgling organization! You watch what you say about it or you can forget about me sponsoring your membership."

"Oh, please forgive me Mr. Treasurer," begged Marcie, with absolutely _no_ sarcasm. "So, what does it take to be a member?"

"Well, you need a sponsor," Xander reiterated. "Then you need to be able to meet your membership dues."

"I have to pay dues?"

"One cookie every six weeks," he answered, totally serious. "Preferably Oreo, but we accept all major brands. Except Fig Newtons, that's a good way to get kicked out."

"Oh really," she smirked. "And these dues would be payable to… who?"

"Why else would we need a Treasurer?"

_11:19 PM_

"No, I'm fine."

"Oh, that's good. Great. But, you know…" Xander began, almost but not quite casually. "if you _were_, uh, scared, you know, of the… dark? You could always sit here, you know, next to me? I mean, it's nothing to be ashamed of, right? Everybody gets scared sometimes."

"Everybody?"

"Well, not _everybody_. I'm not scared, if that's what you're saying. Macho guy like me? Please. Real men don't get scared of the dark. Even when it's… really dark. So dark you can't tell when something's gonna creep right up beside you and AAAAAAAHHHH!!"

"Take it easy, macho man," Marcie soothed him, patting his knee just to the left of where it brushed hers. "It's just me. I have to sit close, right? So you can protect me."

"_**Ye**_ah, uh, yeah," he wondered why his voice had cracked two years after puberty. "That's right."

_12:33 AM_

"Oh, God… Kill me now."

"You've got nothing to be embarrassed about," she comforted, but could resist throwing in, "believe me, nothing at all."

"Where did you see," he asked softly, a defeated tone in his voice. "Classroom or hallway?"

"Hallway," answered Marcie, too cheerfully for his liking. "You were running pretty fast but I saw the whole thing. So, do you work out, or do you just roll out of bed looking like that?"

"I roll out of bed in an old t-shirt and pajama bottoms, thank you very much," he huffed. "You know, it's not fair. You've seen me in my underwear and I'm not even sure what you look like."

Even as he said the words, he could feel her stiffen slightly. The pressure of her thigh against his, something that had been relatively constant for the last hour, lessened. They were still touching, but he could tell she was thinking about pulling away.

"Is it really that important?" she asked, a little coldness seeping for the first time in hours. "What I look like?"

"Well, it's…" he knew enough to be sure that his next words mattered, big time. "No, it's not important. I already know that I was an idiot not to notice you, right? I just… It's weird, isn't it? It's not like we met in some chat room, I'm sitting right next you having a real conversation. I make a joke, and I hear you laugh, but I don't get to see what your smile looks like. Does that make sense?"

She didn't answer right away and it scared him, really scared him. He was about to apologize when he felt her shift her weight. When she spoke, he could tell she was facing him.

"I… I want to try something," she said, her voice halting. "Don't freak out, okay?"

"Okay," he answered, playfully. "Even though telling somebody that is the best way to freak them out."

"Just trust me."

Xander couldn't stop a gulp as he felt her take his hands. Nor could he hold back the slight trembling as she slowly lifted them up. The man in him would never admit that he felt even a little relief when she took them higher still until they were level with her face.

"See me this way," she urged him. "Like you were blind and this was the only way."

Not trusting himself to say anything, he reached out, hoping to God his palms weren't sweaty. Gently, he traced over the lines of her face, starting from the outside and slowly working his way in.

"Tell me," she said, softly but anxiously. "What do you see?"

"Uh…" he idly wondered how a story about him in his boxers had turned into… this. "You've got the dangly kind of earlobes."

There was a few seconds of deathly quiet before the two teens shared a much needed laugh. Marcie slapped him lightly on the shoulder as if to tell him to be serious.

"Okay, um, your hair's really soft… and it's about down to your shoulders."

"Yeah… I've been letting it grow for a couple of months."

"What color is it?" asked Xander, now actually trying to form a picture in his mind as ran his hand through her hair.

"Brown," she answered automatically. "Well, sort of a light brown. My friend Kirstin… she, uh, used to say it was auburn. I guess it has some red in it. Now, come on. What else?"

"What else? Hmmm…" he'd heard the change in her voice after mentioning her friend, but didn't miss the obvious desire to change subject, either. "Well your face… it's… what's the word… it slopes down… Heart-shaped! That's it. Geez, and it's soft. I didn't think you could get skin to feel like this after age zero."

"Oh… thanks," she mumbled, and he felt her face warm just a little. "It's… the way my skin feels is very important to me. I use this stuff… it's a cream. Expensive, but it works."

"I'll say," the two words slipped out before he could stop them. "I mean, it's obviously working. The proof is in the punim, right?"

"The what?"

"Yiddish," he explained. "It means 'face'. Sorry, I was a Jewish pirate earlier today, and I guess I didn't get it all out of my system."

"Jewish pirate?"

"Long Jon Silverman, but that's a story for another day, another closet," he said firmly, and enjoyed the movement in her cheeks that told him she was smiling. "Now, where were we?"

"My punim."

"Right," said Xander, wondering how she made Yiddish sound… naughty. "Okay, two eyes, always a plus. You got the long eyelashes but I don't feel any of that gunky stuff like when my aunt tries to make hers look thicker with makeup. Smallish nose. Hey, it turns up a little. Very cute. Then there's your… lips."

"Uh-huh…"

"And, well… there they are. All soft… and… um, m-moist… and…"

The pad of his right thumb glided across her bottom lip as slow as dripping honey. He could feel the hitch in her breath, the shudder that seemed to travel in waves across her body.

"Mmm?" she murmured, her voice coming in a husky tone that no woman, no human woman, had ever used on him before. "And what?"

"Lipish?" he offered, lamely. "Sorry. That was almost a moment, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," said Marcie as she shifted back to her original spot. "Almost. S'okay, though."

If she hadn't been sitting right next to him he'd never have heard her whispered follow-up.

"After so long with nothing, 'almost' curls my toes."

_1:19 AM_

"… And, by the time we got there, he was covered, I mean _covered_, in bright green applesauce. It was dripping down his face, the food coloring was all in his hair, we both knew it'd take like three showers before it came out, and, I kid you not, it was trailing _out _of his shorts. As in, it was _inside_ his shorts and gravity wanted it out just as bad as he did!" Xander barely got out the sentence before he started laughing just as hard as the girl next to him. "No wait, wait! It gets better. The first thing he says, the _first thing,_ he just looks right at us and says… 'You should see the Lunch Lady'."

A three second pause to let it sink in and they were falling all over each other, laughing so hard they were gasping for air a full minute before they even started composing themselves. Even then, one would start up again and inevitably set the other off. Soon, as they sat there breathing deeply, the atmosphere suddenly shifted. It was Marcie that spoke first.

"You really miss him, don't you?"

He let the question hang a little, looking for a simple answer to a question that was much more complicated than it should have been.

"It's crazy… He's there and then he's gone. Everything's normal, and out of nowhere this thing happens and this giant part of your life just goes away. Of course I miss him, he was always there. We knew everything about each other, the good, the bad, dreams for the future. He was going to make a million dollars and marry Cordelia. I was going to play guitar for Guns 'N' Roses and plan a global concert tour so I wouldn't have to be at their wedding. And then I wake up and realize that he doesn't get a future. He never even got out of high school. How is that fair, right?"

She didn't respond, just put a hand on his knee and squeezed. It helped. He went on.

"But then I catch myself thinking, 'hey, better him than me' and I'm disgusted with myself. I mean, he didn't ask to be… he didn't ask for what happened to him. He was walking through life oblivious, just like I was. And now it's like, things are starting to turn around for me a little bit and I wonder if he's watching me from wherever he is. And every time I make a joke, or I say something stupid that he totally would've caught me on… But, because he's gone, I backpedal and try to talk my way out of it. I smile that goofy smile and Willow or Buffy laugh and it's like Jesse was never there. I'm living like he never existed and I hate it."

He wasn't going to cry. Macho guy and all that. No way.

"He… he'd want you to make friends," said Marcie, softly. "He wouldn't want you to be alone. Not alone, not if he cared about you at all."

In a rare moment of bravery, Xander put his hand on top of hers where she'd left it on his knee. Something had been bothering him for awhile. Something she'd said.

"Your friend, Kristen…?"

"Kirsten," she corrected without thinking.

"Where is she?" he was nearly whispering now. "Marcie, did something… happen to her?"

He felt her try to pull her hand back. He let it off of his knee but held on to the hand itself. Before long, she stopped trying to get loose and gripped it tighter. She put his hand in both of hers and rested her head against it.

"She wasn't my first friend," she said, emotion saturating the tone. "That was Grace. Grace lived next door from us when we were both still in the womb. For her second birthday, she got a new puppy and, when my parents saw it in their yard, they asked if I could come over to play with it. Stupid dog bit me and I cried for like five minutes before Grace went and got this ratty stuffed gorilla and let me hold it so I'd feel better. It smelled really bad, but I stopped crying. And that was it. We were stuck with each other."

You could practically hear her memories as she spoke. Talking about nothing, laughing about less than nothing, fights about nothing that ended their friendship forever… for about ten minutes. Just like him and Jesse.

"Kirsten moved here from Vermont in the second grade," Marcie continued like, if she stopped for too long, she wouldn't' be able to finish at all. "She was wearing these big, thick boots like you need in a place like Vermont, but Cordelia zeroed in on them her first day of school. Girls weren't supposed to wear big, clunky boots. Grace and I found her at lunch, sitting by herself on the swing set, crying. I gave her half my cupcake and Grace threw a dirt clod on Cordy's new white blouse. After that, it was the three of us, always. We knew everything about each other, too. I mean, if there was something Grace didn't know about me, Kirsten could tell you, and anything Kirsten didn't know, I'd already sworn Grace to secrecy about it. Sure, nobody else hung out with us. We didn't need anybody else. I didn't need anybody else."

A small voice in his head told Xander that the story was about to get much worse. Deciding to be proactive, he gently urged his hand out of hers only to offer her his other hand and put his now free arm around her shoulders. She seemed grateful for it and leaned in, much closer than he would've been comfortable with at the start of their night together.

"The summer after junior high, I got invited to stay with my aunt and uncle in Montana. It was great. They had a ranch, and I got to ride horses and swim in their pond. The air's so much cleaner up there you can taste the difference the second you step off the plane, and the stars… It was one of the best summers of my life and I couldn't wait to tell them all about it. But when I got back, they were gone. Just… gone."

He knew not to say anything just yet. All he did was hold her a little tighter as he felt more than heard her fighting back a sob.

"One night they went out and they didn't come back. Their parents went to the police, but they were totally useless. Said they probably just ran away from home. Met some guys that got them into parties, got them drugs… Kirsten hated going to parties, and Grace never took anything stronger than children's Tylenol because she was paranoid that it'd combine with her asthma medicine and make her head explode. Besides, they'd never leave. Not without me. Never."

"I… I don't think they did."

There was a quick intake of breath as she sat up. Even in the dark he could feel her eyes on him.

"What are you saying?"

"There's a chance… a really good chance, that I know what might've happened to them."

This could be a very bad idea. A horrible idea. Doing this involved telling secrets that weren't his to tell, not to mention saying things that could very well earn him a private room at the local nuthouse. Then he thought about what it would have been like if he hadn't been the one to stake Jesse, if it'd been Buffy instead. He thought about not knowing, how he'd feel if she kept it from him. He took a deep breath and made his decision.

"The world is older than you know…"

_1:25 AM_

Both teens were completely silent. One was suddenly overcome by the totally new reality they had been thrust into and the million questions that needed answers, the other just waited for the first to say something. Eventually they just got fed up with waiting.

"So…?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, you just said 'the world is older than I know' and you went quiet. What does the world being older have to do with Grace and Kirsten?" Marcie asked, confused but prepared to be furious if he was jerking her chain.

"Sorry, I…" Xander mentally kicked himself, wishing he paid more attention. "Man, this would be so much easier if Giles was here!"

"Giles? You mean, Mr. Giles? That new librarian?"

"Yeah, it's his speech. It… Look, I'm just gonna say it. And you're probably gonna think I'm messing with you or that I'm crazy, but I don't care. You have a right to know, if that's what happened to them. I don't think they ran away, I think they were attacked, that something might have attacked them."

"Some_thing_?" she repeated, cautiously. "You mean like… an animal?"

"No, something else. There are things it this town, Marcie. Things you wouldn't believe unless you've seen it. I didn't believe it until I was up to my neck in it."

"What are you talking about, Xander?"

"Jesse wasn't killed in a gang shooting," he said, and then he let it all fly. "It was a vampire. He was killed by a vampire. Then she turned him into one, and then he turned to dust when I put a stake through his heart."

"You… Jesse…" she didn't sound angry, or even upset, but there was the natural disbelief he'd expected. "A vampire?"

"They're real. So are demons, witches, giant praying mantis women that bite the heads off virgins. It's all real. And this town brings them all here. There's something here, underground. It was here when the first Spanish missionaries came, they could sense the evil here. They called it the _Vaca del Infierno_. They built Sunnydale right on top of it!"

"'Vaca del Infierno?' We're on a… Hell… cow?"

"What? No! BOCA! _Boca_ del Infierno, I always got them mixed up in Spanish. The _Mouth _of Hell. It's like some big dimensional convergence where hell is butting right up against the Earth, and all that negative energy seeping out of it does things. It brings the demons, the vampires, like a porch light brings moths, but nobody does anything about it because the police here are a joke and it's easier just to believe that its gang members or wild dogs or anything except for what it really is!"

He was holder her tighter now. Waiting for her to start squirming, to try and get away. Who cares how crazy it sounded? He wanted her to believe it, needed her to. Because he knew, if she didn't, she'd hate him for making jokes about her dead friends, just like he knew he'd have hated her if their positions had been reversed.

"I… believe you," she said, and he could hear it in her voice.

"You do?"

"It explains so much. It… it makes sense now. What happened… magic. It's real."

"I've seen it, it's all real. That nightmare thing today, that's the Hellmouth. It twists everything. Makes it darker, scarier. I think it brought the things that got them."

"That's what did it…"

Even as a best case scenario, he hadn't expected this. She seemed… relieved. If that ever came at all, it was supposed to come later, much later, after she decided anything was better than not knowing. He was sitting there wondering when he felt her tense again.

"Why?"

"Why what?" he asked, hoping it was something he could actually answer.

"Why are you still here? You knew about this before today, why stay? Why didn't you leave after… after what happened to Jesse?"

That's when Xander Harris said something else that, if he'd thought harder, he might never have said.

"Well… I can tell you but, for you to understand, there's something you need to know about Buffy Summers…"

_4:27 AM_

"'One of the girls'?"

"It's what she said."

"And you're sure she wasn't joking? She did get hit by some super drunk spell right? And drunk people always think they're funnier than they really are."

"Nope," he stated with glum finality. "As much as I've tried to convince myself she didn't really mean it, it's easier to believe _in Vino Veritas_."

"What's that?"

"'In wine, the truth'," he explained. "It's Latin."

"You know Latin? A few hours ago, you were trying to warn me about the Hell_cow_, and now you're quoting Latin?"

"Don't think of it so much as quoting Latin. It's more that, if there's an old saying that has anything to do with wine, whiskey, beer, scotch, vodka, the list goes on… everybody in my family knows it. I can talk about booze in more than ten languages. It's my birthright as a Harris."

Marcie patted him lightly on the arm that hadn't left her shoulder for more than a few seconds since he'd put it there. At this point, they could claim that they were sharing body heat, considering that even southern California can get a little chilly at night. That was only if somebody had found them like that, of course. Since it was just the two of them, Xander was perfectly fine with the idea that it just felt comfy.

"It'd be easier if I knew, you know?" he spoke again, moving on to less dismal but more confusing topics. "What is it about Buffy that makes me do this? She's like catnip for Xanders. She's Xander-nip. Why?"

"You mean besides the obvious parts that guys typically like to 'nip'?" she teased, worming a finger into the spot just below his ribs that she'd found by accident a little while ago, reveling in his squirming as he tried to resist the powerful tickling feeling. "I have seen her around school, you know."

"It's not that. Not _just_ that, anyway. Initial attraction, sure, but that can't be it. I don't know what it is, but she's got this… thing."

"Does that 'thing' come with being the Slayer?"

"No. Well…" he actually had to think about that a bit. "I don't think so. Then again, she's the first Slayer I ever met… Maybe it is some kind of freaky Slayer vibe. But then why me? I've seen guys totally blow her off. Not, you know, a lot. But I've seen it."

"Do you think, maybe, you're over thinking it? The more time you spend dwelling on it, the more it's gonna have a hold on you. Whatever it is."

"But I can't _not_ dwell on it," he said, sure that her solution was way too simple. "Look at what it's doing. My relationship with my two best friends… outside this closet, of course… it's based on a lot of pretending."

"How do you figure?" she asked, concerned but he could detect a hint of preening from when he'd corrected himself.

"Well, Buffy pretends not to notice the way I feel about her, because it's important that her best guy friend isn't just being nice so he can get in her pants. I pretend not to notice that Willow's had a crush on me since puberty, because I think I might actually love her too much to consider her a sex object. Then Willow has to pretend that she doesn't see any of it, when I know it's got to be like pulling teeth for her. Nobody wants to hurt anybody's feelings, but it's like we're all trying to have everything and we wind up settling for whatever we can spare without stepping on anybody's toes."

"Why not Willow?" asked Marcie, tone neutral. "And don't give me that sex object thing. I don't buy that for a second. It seems like it'd solve all your problems if you'd just go for her. She'd be happy, Buffy'd be happy and you'd have a girlfriend that's known you long enough to have your proper care and feeding committed to memory."

"I can't be with Willow."

"Why not?"

"I _can't_ be with Willow!" harsher this time.

"_Why_ not?" she shot back, not willing to let go.

"Because!" he shouted, finally. "Because…"

"Because of your mom and dad?"

It brought Xander's mind to a dead stop. He wasn't sure why he'd done it. Maybe it just slipped out because he was that afraid of letting the room go quiet, and he'd been running out of other things to say.

Not likely.

As weird as it was to admit, he was pretty sure it hadn't been an accident. Being there with somebody, somebody that laughed at his jokes, somebody that called him on his B.S., somebody that had been hurt, ignored. Not only that, there was something about sitting in the dark with a stranger that made it feel like… well, he'd never been in a Confessional, but he imagined they were sort of like this. If he said something here, it wasn't really bringing it out into the light of day. It was secret, safe.

So, he'd told her. About what happened to his mother sometimes. Never too often, because the neighbors would talk, but sometimes his mom would wear sunglasses in the house, or a scarf on a hot day.

He talked about what had happened sometimes when he was younger. Never too often, because the other kids might talk to their folks. The last time it'd happed there'd been a close call with Willow. Playing doctor with child prodigy using a real physician's desk reference made diagnosing blunt force trauma pretty darn likely.

What made him a little sick was the fact that he wasn't all that angry. Mostly he felt regret that it hadn't stopped just a little sooner. That broken arm had pretty much ruined a promising season of kiddie league baseball. Besides, it's not like it happened any more. To him. And what if his mom still walked into a door every once in awhile? It's her fault for staying with him. It's her fault for making him grow up in that creep's house when they could've just left.

"Oh, my God…"

The answer. The real answer, and it'd been staring him in the face for years.

He knew he was going to turn into his father someday.

It wouldn't happen overnight. It never did. Couples starting out always have fights. That's why they invented make-up sex. So he'd fight. And nobody likes to lose, right? So he'd do it the right way, make her see his point of view calmly and rationally. Until that didn't work, then he'd just be louder. And then, someday, when he's shouting at the top of his lungs and she's shouting back just as loud, he'd get so angry that his hand would "move on its own." When that happens, there's a few different ways it can play out.

He begs her forgiveness, promises to never do it again. Maybe they both have a good cry.

She slugs him back, or worse. Plenty of knives in a kitchen.

Maybe she just walks out. Takes whatever she can carry with her and gets the rest in the divorce settlement.

Willow would wonder what she did wrong.

He knew it. He knew how she was with him, when it came to her Xander. She'd take it. Just like his mom did.

"She'd just take it," he said, not even a little embarrassed by the wetness around his eyes. "If I turn out to be like that… like my father, she'd just keep taking it and blaming herself."

"And Buffy?"

Buffy?

"Buffy'd kill me," he almost had to laugh at how simple it really was, at the heart. "I hit her, I break my hand and she breaks my neck…"

Now he really was laughing.

"Fear of Buffy might actually be enough to keep me sober. You think?"

He laughed until his shoulders shook, then stopped when the laughter threatened to turn into sobs. It was like a weight on his shoulders had been… not lifted. In fact, it was more like he'd been carrying the weight all his life and now he was feeling it for the first time. It explained everything. Willow, Buffy, everything. It was a prison sentence in his ears, and it poisoned everything he'd ever thought about the two girls who'd been rapidly becoming the most important people in his life.

"You don't need some supergirl, Xander," there was firmness in her voice that his drifting mind latched onto instantly, desperate for something solid. "Just… someone who won't let you push her around."

"Yeah?"

Just like Buffy on patrol. Just like Giles with his demon lore. Just like Willow in a study session. Whenever Xander felt like he was out of his depth, he deferred to whoever sounded like they knew what they were talking about.

"Someone who wouldn't wait half a decade to tell you how she feels."

"Someone…"

There was sharp rise in body heat, and he was pretty sure it wasn't just his. He felt her hands snaking up his chest before they grabbed a fistful each of his dark, wavy hair.

"Someone who knows what she wants and who's not afraid to take it."

"Take it?" he muttered, his mind dizzy from breakthroughs, breakdowns, and about a tidal wave of hormones.

He could hear the smirk in her voice.

"Don't mind if I do…"

Her lips crashed against his. It was clumsy, the first landing way off center, but she tightened her grip and guided him right where she wanted him. On instinct, he let his hands drop to her waist and dragged her into his lap, not straddling so much as laying on him with her legs off to one side. The same instinct ran his palms up her arms, probably with the intention of releasing his hair. They never made it that far, stopping halfway to find themselves on either side of her head to deepen the kiss even further. Mouths opened, each trying to trap the other's lips and both succeeding about half the time. They pressed closer and closer, trying to fill in every inch of space that'd been between them, neither hearing the groans and grunts that escaped. Primal, single-minded determination to make a moment last forever.

Funny thing, humans and their need for oxygen…

The teens pulled apart, gasping like they'd run the hundred meter dash. For awhile there was only the sound of their breathing, until it got slower and softer and eventually went back to normal.

"Well…" said Xander, ever the first to make an observation. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you had somebody in mind already."

She buried her face in his chest with a short laugh, her smile something he could feel even through his shirt. When she pulled back, she leaned much further than he'd expected and didn't bother to let go, so he quickly found himself in very much the same position he'd landed in face up on the floor of the janitor's closet. There was one minor difference, one that let out a distinctly happy sigh as she used his shoulder for a pillow. The sigh of happiness was followed closely by a yawn of… well, indeterminate emotion, really.

"Tired?" he asked, getting a lazy confirmation. "Yeah, me too. It's been a long, _long_ night. Best one I've had in a while, though."

"Me too," she cooed, sleepily. "Best night in so long…"

"So… I guess I'll see you in the morning, huh?"

Her only answer was to huddle in even closer, holding on tight to him as he surrendered to his fatigue.

_9:30 AM_

"Mother of God and all her wacky nephews!"

Xander spasmed awake at the exclamation, his reflex action of sitting up reminding him of his still recent head injury. Forcing back the pain, he propped himself up on one elbow and squinted against the light streaming in through the open door.

"What in the… Kid, you spend the night locked up alone in there?" asked the silhouetted figure in the doorway, clearly the one that'd shouted and woke him up.

"Alone…?"

He immediately noticed the sudden chill or, more specifically, the lack of her added warmth. His head swiveled around the distinctly empty closet. Swiveling one's head, yet another great way to aggravate a head injury. Grimacing he brought his free hand to the area, touching lightly to confirm that it was still extremely tender.

"Geez, kid," the janitor, whose nametag identified him as either "Roy" or "The guy wearing Roy's shirt," winced sympathetically. "What happened? Your forehead try to swallow a goose egg?"

"No…" he managed with some difficulty, still trying and failing to clear his head completely. "Where'd she go?"

"She? You mean it was a girl that put you in there?"

"What? No! I got thrown in by Danny Zuko and the freaking T-Birds, now where is she!?"

"Settle down, kid," the older man chided, offering a hand to help Xander up. "Where's who?"

"Marcie!" he shouted, still slightly angry at the suggestion that a girl could throw him into a closet and totally not appreciating the irony of that line of thought. "The girl, the one that was in here with me all night. About this tall, medium length sort of auburn hair. Where'd she go?"

"Go? You were all by yourself in there when I opened the door. Yeesh! Look at the crack in this sink… That where you got the lump?"

Thinking back, with some difficulty, he nodded.

"Well, maybe I dropped out of med school a little early, but I'd say you got knocked out and had yourself one hell of a dream. You're lucky. Last time I passed out on the floor, I sure as heck didn't get to spend the night with no girl in no closet."

A dream? Xander swayed slightly, putting a hand on the wall to steady himself. He shook his head, not willing to believe the night before had been some kind of trauma-induced hallucination. No, it was real. _She _was real! But… why would the janitor lie about something like that. His feet started moving almost on their own. He needed to go, needed to step outside and clear his head.

"Whoa, hold up, kid!" Possibly-Roy clapped a hand on his shoulder to halt his progress. "I can't just let you walk out of here, the shape you're in. I got a key to the main office, we'll call your folks."

That woke him up in a hurry.

"Uh, yeah… I don't think that'd be the best idea. See, my parents…" said the teen, wondering how best to explain that his parents wouldn't be going anywhere this early on a Saturday. "They're away on business."

"Fine, is there anybody else you can call?"

_10:01 AM_

Rupert Giles had just sat down to a proper English breakfast, one of his few old home pleasures here in the colonies, when he'd received the call. Now, dressed in a long coat over a sweat suit and slippers, he found himself reaching into the mini-fridge in his office to retrieve a cold compress. He'd already checked the boy for a concussion using the basic field medic training standard for all Watchers, and had given him a rather favorable prognosis provided he reduce the swelling on his forehead.

"I'm telling you, Giles," the young man insisted, after gratefully taking the offered ice pack, "I don't see how I could've just dreamed the whole thing."

"The human mind is a-a great deal more complex than one would imagine," explained the Watcher, gently. "In the face of significant injury, it does whatever it can to, well, to cope while the damage is repaired."

"So that's it, I was… coping?"

The pseudo-librarian removed his glasses, but was forced to clean them on his sweatshirt when he recalled he'd left his handkerchief, not to mention his suit, back at his flat.

"Perhaps if you were somewhat more forthcoming with your accounts of what supposedly went on in the custodian's closet, I could be of more help. You've given me remarkably little to go on."

"It's… private."

"Yes, I imagine it would be, you and this Marcie… alone all night."

"It wasn't like that!" snapped Xander, way too quickly. "Not really. Hey, what about what the janitor said? The only reason he even found me in the first place was because he heard pounding on the door. Well, when he got there, I was still out like a light. How do you explain that?"

"Any number of ways, actually. You could have been thrashing about in your unconscious state. Or that blow to the head might have caused enough disorientation that you've simply forgotten," he reasoned, then took pause when he saw Xander seem to deflate. "Then again, there's still a chance she might've stayed out of sight, possibly out of fear of reprisal. As you mentioned, she had been hiding in a place off limits to students. If you're set on finding this young lady, perhaps you should enlist Willow's assistance. I'm sure, with the help of that godless machine, she could easily compile a list of any students by that name."

Xander almost voiced his agreement when he felt the gossamer weight of a memory, like a ghostly caress against his lips.

"I, uh, I really don't want to bug Willow with something like this," he said, failing so miserably at acting nonchalant that he probably qualified as being just plain chalant. "But, hey, you're like a member of the faculty, right? You totally have the access! Just go to one of the secretaries, tell 'em a girl checked out a book and it's overdue, but she… Oh, but she had this completely unreadable signature, so you only know her name is 'Marcie'. It's perfect!"

"Hang on, now see here…" Giles began, just about reaching his limit.

If he had been asking for the favor from Willow, or even Buffy, now would be the time he'd use the "big puppy dog eyes" routine. This was different, a promise between men, and required a different approach. He stared him straight in the eyes, jaw set, head unbowed. As it had been done since the dawn of man, a single plea passed between them, unspoken but understood by males the world over.

_Come on, dude, this could get me laid!_

"I'll see what I can do," he relented, turning to head out the door. "Now, we should see about getting you home. Your parents must be positively frantic."

"Giles, you are the man," Xander praised, following close behind. "Just for this, I promise nobody'll ever know you wore something that wasn't tweed."

As the two left the library's smallish office, neither paid any mind to the object floating in mid-air, coming to rest on Gile's desk right in front of where Xander had been sitting.

There, on the polished wooden surface, was a single Oreo cookie, fresh from the package.

_10:03 AM_

Hollering behind him for Giles to wait, Xander strode back into the office with his nose in the air and sniffing furiously. His eyes darted around the room before the target was acquired.

"Score!" he said, snatching up the little chocolate and cream treat. "Free cookie!"

Author's Note:

Back after so long and _this_ is what I give you? Hardly seems fair, wot? Actually, I'm quite ready to defend this particular work. Not because I thought it was any good, no sir. Because the original idea came from the mind of the ever-impressive **Ted "dogbertcarroll" Carroll **who you may know from such Buffy fics as _Lacking an Anchor_, _Walking in the Shadows_, and (if you're reading this Mr. Carroll, this is one that could really used an update) the superlative _Avatars and Interpretations_. Some time ago, on the yahoo group of **nonjon**, who happenes to be one of the top gods in my fanfic pantheon, Mr. Carroll saw fit to post a laundry list of significant Buffy ideas. I've yet to hear of one of them being used so, dare I believe it, I might be the first.

I know, for a fact, that this is my first instance of a…

Of a…

Ppllll…

Plaaahhh…

Aw hell.

Plot bunny. There, I said it. This is the first time I ever fell prey to a plot bunny. Ye gods, I hate that term.

In any case, I hope I did justice to what began as a fantastic idea had by someone that isn't me.

Anyone who reads my work and is wondering why I came back from a fairly dry spell and am suddenly doing Buffy fics, believe me when I say I'm as shocked as you are. This is something I felt I had to do but, unless I get a huge positive response to lead me elsewhere, I'll be updating _Can't Take the Sky _followed immediately by _Badical Nindo_.

May hardy blessings fall at your feet, with tonnage that could crush steel-toed boots,

Blessed be,  
-Brother Bludgeon


	2. Can't Keep His Mind on Nothin' Else

Buffy the Vampire Slayer created by Joss Whedon

_**He Can't See It  
Chapter 2: Can't Keep His Mind on Nothin' Else**_

"_Have a nice summer."_

_Have a nice summer?_

_He's the same. They're all the same, all of them. Never knew, all forgot, didn't care._

_But he cared. He told me so, he showed me. He kissed me…_

_I kissed him._

_He kissed back. He held me and told me he'd see me in the morning._

_He didn't see me in the morning. Saw right through me just like all the others._

_He couldn't see me. It's not his fault. _

_Her fault. She did this to me. That bitch and all her friends. She's gonna pay. They're all gonna pay._

_No._

_She has to pay, she did this! It's her fault!_

_No. It's not Cordelia. It's this school, this town. Hellmouth. It did something to me._

_But, she's behind it, she has to be! She… she's evil!_

_High school evil. That's what he said. That Buffy's wanted "slay" her but she can't._

_I can. They won't see me coming. They can't see me, they can't touch me._

_He won't touch me. If I go through with this, I'll be just another monster of the week to him._

_What am I to him now? A hallucination? A dream? _

_A name. He still knows my name. He'll be looking for me. He will._

_He won't find me, won't see me. He'll give up, I'll be alone again. Cordelia will still have everything._

_I'll find him. He wants to see. _

_I'll make him see. _

_What's that noise? Sounds like somebody's talking. It's still Sunday. Who could be…?_

_Oh, this is too perfect. _

_High school evil? _

_More like felony assault. _

_And you might've gotten away with it, too…_

_But you had to go and pick on my man._

_

* * *

_

The door was shut tight, in the unlikely event that somebody was patrolling the halls. Justin Adams looked out through the narrow pane of glass for what had to be the fiftieth time in the last two minutes. He wasn't sure what he expected to see but, whatever it was, it hadn't shown up yet.

"Justin!" an irate voice called out from the other side of the room. "Be paranoid on your own time, we got work to do!"

He turned to see that both of his friends had already doffed their leather jackets in favor of the familiar school-issued coveralls. Catching the oil-stained set that was tossed his way, he sighed in frustration as he removed his own jacket and struggled into the one-size-fits-all protective wear. The sigh didn't go unnoticed as Vic Sloane paused in wheeling the flat board to the area they'd be focusing on tonight.

"What is your deal, anyway?" he asked, giving Justin a light smack to the shoulder. "You were the one bitching at us to come down here in the first place. We checked on Harris, didn't we? Closet's empty, so he got out just fine."

"You don't know that!" the blonde hissed, worriedly. "What if they found him and he was still knocked out? What if he was…"

"Dead?" the third man spoke up again, voice straining as he lifted the rusty service jack from a countertop. "If he's dead, he can't rat on us. Now shut up and go work your magic on the supply cabinet."

Justin rolled his eyes but made his way across the concrete floors to the cabinet, anyway. There were times he suspected the only reason his friends kept him around was his talent for lock picking. Even if they did, it wouldn't matter much. He knew that loners in this town had a tendency to disappear. He'd choose safety in numbers over self-respect any day. Not that he felt all that safe at the moment.

"It's done," he said as the lock to the supply cupboard opened with click. "Jimmy, why can't we just wait 'til tomorrow? The car's still gonna be here on Monday."

"'Cause we're here now, that's why," answered Jimmy, pushing past him to grab one of the bigger tool kits. "You're wasting time. Get the keys, I want to check if the gasket's started leaking air again."

Jimmy DeLuca. Some might call him a poser, a wannabe greaser trapped in an era that ended decades before he was born. The truth of it was that Jimmy was the product of an affectionate but domineering mother and a dead father. A father that'd died when Jimmy was three, leaving behind a stack of old car magazines and a black leather jacket that Jimmy had been wearing long before it had started to fit him. So, yeah, he'd watched those old greaser movies. It made him feel closer to his dad. And when the other kids would pick on him for wearing a jacket three sizes too big, he did what any of his old movie idols would do. He beat the respect into them.

Vic was the first to start hanging out with Jimmy, back in middle school. Neither of them said why, but Justin had a theory. As much as Jimmy talked about "honor," a lot of what he was about came down to plain and simple cruelty. Vic liked seeing other people suffer, got off on it. That's not to say it was all they had in common.

They both liked cars, too.

Actually, "like" was a supreme understatement. They were obsessed. Any conversation that wasn't about giving such and such guy a beating was about cars. Driving cars, fixing cars, racing cars… Justin was pretty sure that, if it wasn't for the school's Auto Shop class, Jimmy and Vic would've both dropped out years ago. Heck, he wasn't sure they weren't thinking about stealing the car they were working on, once they managed to get it running again, and hauling ass out of town. If it came to that, he only hoped he'd have the guts to stay behind. More than that, he hoped they'd let him.

The car in question was a '57 Chrysler 300C convertible, one of less than five hundred made that year, liberated from the Sunnydale Municipal dump with the majority of its Hemi FirePower engine still intact. In its heyday, the 300C had put the "muscle" in "muscle car," with its V8 and 375 horses. Naturally, they'd be making a few modifications, some of them only barely street legal. The shop teacher was fairly hands-off in this area.

Vic was on his back, lying on the creeper as he used it to roll himself under the jacked up chassis. Tough as he claimed to be, not even Jimmy was willing to work on the car from underneath. The service jack was only about ten years younger than the car it was lifting. It creaked and groaned and looked like it would break in half if you even looked at it funny. There was also the added danger of working underneath an engine that was running, and all the lovely moving parts of death and dismemberment that went with it. Vic, though, was just arrogant enough to believe that nothing could possibly go wrong.

"Hey, get me a light," he shouted up at his cohorts. "I'm in the dark over here!"

He heard a few steps, followed by a yelp and a heavy thud.

"Whoa Justin, we gotta teach you to walk now?" he heard Jimmy ask.

Vic didn't hear any response from Justin. He assumed the engine was too loud.

"Hey, light!" he shouted again. "I don't care if little Miss Justine twisted her ankle, I'm working blind!"

"Hold your friggin' horses, alright?" Jimmy called back. "Dumb bastard just tripped over his own feet and knocked himself out cold doing a header into the counter."

"That's what I call justice," Vic chuckled to himself. "Spent all that time whining about Harris, and he winds up with the same damn headache."

This time, he could see the shadows moving along the floor as Jimmy brought the work light around. Just before it made the complete half circuit around the car, the light jerked wildly and he heard Jimmy shouting followed by a big crash, metal on concrete.

"Jimmy?" he asked, after a few seconds of silence, and then again but louder when he didn't answer. "Jimmy, you okay?"

The only answer was another metallic thud. Then another. Somehow, Jimmy must've tripped and knocked over one of the toolkits. Must've been the big one, since there were some still falling. He looked over to the side just in time to see a large wrench landing with a loud bang. Except the wrench, hadn't hit the ground. It'd landed on the jack, the only thing that was holding up about two tons of American steel. There was a groan of metal on metal and Vic shut his eyes tight… but the impact never came.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief just in time to see the sledgehammer succeed where the wrench had failed.

* * *

"Ah, the start of another fine day in the 'Dale. Of course, considering the last 48 hours, any day I wake up without my head feeling like somebody crashed a Buick into it qualifies as fine."

Xander laughed at his own joke, mostly because he felt like somebody had to. In the early morning hours, the earliest that he'd ever been at school while still conscious, the halls were practically empty. He walked with brisk strides towards his destination, hoping to get there before anyone spotted him.

It also helped that he was slightly anxious to get there. This would be his first time talking to Giles since Saturday morning. The more rational part of his brain told him that the Librarian couldn't possibly have any new information this early on a Monday, to which the irrational portion of his brain responded by saying it still wasn't listening. It then proceeded to spend a full minute contemplating the mystery that is nougat.

Neither part of his brain could fully prepare him for what he saw as he pushed open the library doors.

"Buffy?"

She was literally as beautiful as he'd ever seen her. Her hair was down, not unusual by itself, but seemed to flow like a fountain of spun gold, falling into untamed waves around her shoulders. She wore a knee-length pink floral skirt with calf-high tan leather boots, high heeled. Her shirt, short-sleeved and plain white, was cut just low enough to expose a hint of cleavage.

There was this light about her, reflecting off her, coming from within her, that was filling his vision completely. It made him want live out his days in the sun, to forget everything he ever knew about the dark. But there was something tugging at his mind, something that reminded him that there were things in the dark besides the vampires, besides the demons.

There was a soft voice, with soft skin and softer lips. There was a memory, real to him as any other, without any light at all. A memory that let the light dim before him until all that was left was the barest glimmers.

"Xander? Why are you wearing a beret?"

Yeah, that pretty much killed the glimmers.

"Oh, ah this…?" he absentmindedly reached up and adjusted the front a little further over his forehead as he stammered his reply. "I'm trying out a new look. I just woke up this morning and thought, 'hey, fifty million French guys can't all be wrong, right?' So, be honest, what's it saying to you?"

"It's saying…" the blonde's nose wrinkled, either in thought or disgust, he couldn't tell. "Frère Jacques?"

He pulled at the bulbous black cap a little more, but nowhere near enough to hide behind. Hiding being more or less his intention.

"Sorry," she went on with a shrug. "That's pretty much all the French I know. But I think there's got to be some universal language of fashion that's screaming for me to snatch that thing off your head and burn it."

Smiling playfully, she made a grab as if to do just that, but he quickly took a step back. His hand had shot up, pressing the offending accessory protectively against his scalp.

"Actually, I think I want to live with it for awhile, you know?" he tried for casual, hoping to play off the clumsy dodge. "I mean, this could be the start of the next big fad. Who are we to fight the future?"

"Okaaay…" she deadpanned, shooting one last grimace at the hat before her smile returned. "So, besides crusading for the French beanie, what are you up to this early on a Monday?"

"Oh, I was just hoping to catch Giles," said Xander, glad for the change of topic. "He said he was going to look up some stuff for me. How about you?"

That last part he'd added quickly, hoping that she wouldn't think to ask him what he meant by "some stuff."

"Weapons pickup," she answered grabbing a seat at the big, wooden table. "I left everything here before Dad and I drove down to L.A., so I'm here to restock."

Mention of L.A. led to the obvious questions about her weekend, her Dad, and the emotional baggage typically associated with a father that gave her about the same time commitment as somebody in the Army Reserves. One weekend a month, two weeks a year. It let Xander get over a lot of the awkwardness that'd settled over them that morning, letting him do what he did best and make with the funny.

She was still laughing when he made up his mind. This was something he'd decided to do two days ago, as memories of that Friday night hit him full force. It was time to be a man.

"Buffy, I need to talk to you about something."

The seriousness in his voice must have been fairly obvious because she'd stopped laughing completely. It hadn't even trailed off, just cut off so abruptly that he was worried she might have hurt herself.

"Um, okay," she said, putting the smile back on with a little more effort than she'd had to before. "What's up? Nothing too big, right? 'Cause it's pretty early in the day for big, don't you think?"

"Well, it is kind of big," he admitted. "But big's not necessarily bad. I think, here, big is good. Buffy, I've been thinking a lot recently… about you and me, about these feelings I have."

"Xander…" she seemed to deflate right in front of him, and he thought he could hear the beginnings of some heavy emotions in her voice. "You're one of my best friends, I…"

"Buffy, please," he cut in, steeling himself. "This is sort of a whole speech thing. Just please let me try and get it all out before you say anything. Please?"

Buffy nodded, but he could swear he could see a little moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"It's just…" he'd thought of a hundred ways to say this, and couldn't think of any way to start. "You just said that I was one of your best friends. And that's great. No, that's better than great. But, the truth is that being your friend hasn't always been the first thing on my mind. I mean, it's like this.

"The first time I saw you, it's like the world stopped. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. After I hit the railing, it was because I had the wind knocked out of me, but before that it was all you. You were the happy ending in every fairytale from when I was a kid, you were the kiss at the end of every movie I refuse to admit I've watched, you were every good dream I'd ever had all rolled into one. And that was the day I started believing in love at first sight."

He looked at her and it seemed like it was taking everything she had not to interrupt. He went on.

"Then you met Cordelia, and she liked you. You were in. Right where you were supposed to be, completely untouchable. But you met Willow, talked to Willow. You chose Willow, knowing that it was pretty much popularity suicide. You showed the kind of heart that beautiful girls don't need, because everybody loves them anyway. I thought I loved everything about you. I believed it as much as I ever believed in anything."

The first tear had finally escaped a few seconds after he'd mentioned Willow's name. It made him want to skip straight to the end, but she had to understand. He couldn't do it halfway, not this.

"And then I found out about your calling. That you're this supernatural being, destined to fight all the things that aren't supposed to exist. That you're strong, deadly. And, do you know what I realized? It didn't change anything. Because it didn't change you. You're not the Slayer. If there was a people dictionary it wouldn't define Buffy as 'noun: see Slayer, The.' The Slayer's a weapon. It's _your_ weapon. It's just this tiny part of you, something you use to help people. Because that, the caring about people, is who you really are. And you _are_ the pretty girl I saw from across the quad. And you're the one who thinks with your heart, not with your ego. You're not a weapon. You're a hero. You're my hero."

Her eyes were wet, but he didn't think she was crying anymore. She was staring at him, with this expression on her face that he'd never seen before. It definitely wasn't that "I'm about to kick a wounded kitten and I hate myself" expression she had on earlier. There wasn't much resemblance to those looks she wore when she saw Angel. Or talked about Angel. Or sniffed Angel's borrowed leather jacket when she thought no one was looking.

She looked… hopeful was the word, but not in the way you'd think. It's like he could see a sense of hope filling her, like… It was like one of the few times he'd ever seen the outside of this town. He'd been eight, Willow and Jesse had both been there. The McNally's had decided to celebrate such and such promotion at work by taking their son and his two friends to Disneyland. This look Buffy was wearing was exactly the same as the ones he'd seen on the faces of the kids next to him in that car, the face he knew he'd been wearing as he saw those highway signs counting down the distance every few miles. It was the look of growing hope for the future, new hope for today. It was now or never.

"That's why I want you to know that I'm giving up on the idea of us ever being more than friends."

Okay, now she looked like he'd sprouted another head on each shoulder and started singing a show tunes medley in three part harmony.

"What?"

"It wouldn't work, I get that now. I mean, you either feel a thing or you don't. You can't force it, and what kind of jackass would I be if I wanted you to? I go on and on in my head about how great you are but the only thing you ever asked me for, well besides grabbing things off the top shelf, is to be your friend. That's something that you, more than almost anyone else, deserve to be getting from me. And I was this close to ruining it with all my numb-brained attempts to change your mind about us. I mean, you do so much for everybody, and that's all you're asking for? Well, from now on, things are gonna change. I'll be the friend I should've been all this time, I'll be there for you because that's where I want to be and not because I think it'll get me closer to something else. I'm not saying that I'm fine with being one of the girls. AH-bupbupbub…"

He had to raise a hand stop her. They certainly didn't need to go over that again.

"I know, it was a spell. You're sorry, you didn't mean it. But, hey, you kinda did. And I, red-blooded American semi-muscular man though I am, have to admit that being a guy whose only friends are pretty girls... or forty-something English librarians... will lead to that kind of thinking. But, I am man. I will tease, I will flirt, I may even let slip the occasional ogle. That won't stop me from trying to be the best friend I can be so, if you can live with that then get over here, give me a hug, and forgive me for not figuring all this out sooner."

She practically jumped out of her chair, traveling the four feet between them in less time than he typically reserved for blinking, and hugged him for all she was worth.

This led to an unforeseen complication.

"NGYaaaAAH, Slayer strength! Slayer strength!"

"Sorry," Said the one girl in all the world as she eased up, if just barely. "Did you really mean all that?"

"Every word, Buff," he answered, looking down into eyes that he realized she'd just dried on his shirt. "From now on, I'm just your big, funny Xander-shaped friend. That's all I need."

It must have been weird lighting or something, as Xander thought he saw her smile fall for a split second. That had to be it, because now she had on this big Cheshire cat grin.

"So… I guess that means you're putting yourself back on the Sunnydale High open market, huh?"

There was mischief dancing in her eyes as she said it, and he knew why.

"Don't tell Willow," said Xander, quietly.

Any teasing follow-up on her part died the second she saw the look on his face. He spoke up again before she could ask any of those questions he didn't want to answer.

"Come on, it looks like Giles is a no-show and we got homeroom in five," he said, waiting for her to grab her stuff before walking towards the double doors. "On a positive note, at least you'll always have something to remind him of if you ever show up late to trai-WUORFfff!"

That, apparently, is the sound of a redheaded missile impacting on the torso of an unsuspecting high school sophomore.

"Xanderareyouokay? Of course you're not okay, those stupid boys locked you in a closet all night long! Does it still hurt? Did you go to the emergency room like I told you to? Did you tell them you were allergic to penicillin? I'msorryI'msorry I should've never gone to my gradma's and left you all alone to get your head bashed in I'msorryI'msorryI'mSORRY!"

At this point, an increasingly nervous teenage boy in the frantic embrace of his childhood friend prayed to gods above and devils below that hyper speed Willow babble was too much for Buffy's untrained ears.

"To get your _what_ bashed in!" the blonde half-growled, her gaze locked directly onto the previously forgotten black beret.

Before he could twitch, the cap was ripped off to reveal the purpled knot of swollen skin on his otherwise unmarked forehead. Willow just whimpered and grabbed him tighter around the middle, apologies coming too fast for even him to understand.

"Now, Buff…" he said, trying to backpedal and comfort the girl with the near-python level grip all at the same time. "There's a reason why I didn't want to tell you right away."

"Who did that to you?" asked Buffy, voice deceptively calm.

"See? This is what I'm talking about. You just found out I got hurt, and you're already-"

"Names. Now."

Let no one say that Alexander Harris is the sort of man that instantly caves around strong women. He held out for a full nine seconds.

"James DeLuca, Victor Sloane, Justin Adams" he barked out, unconsciously turning to put Willow between them.

"Thank you."

With that, she stepped around and pushed open the double doors like a gunslinger entering a saloon before marching down the hallway. Xander had moved to follow her when he was reminded of the extra weight he was carrying. She didn't seem like she was planning to let up any time soon, so he shifted her into a fairly awkward side-hug and did his best to guide them both out of the library.

It didn't take a master of deductive reasoning to tell which way she'd gone. All he needed to do was look over at where a severely pissed-off Cordelia was standing with her flavor of the month boyfriend Mitch and her perpetual hanger-on Harmony.

"What is that psycho girl's problem, anyway?" the angry heiress griped to her little entourage. "Here I am minding my own business and she comes stampeding right at me like I was in the Running of the Cows in Spain or something!"

"I thought that was the 'Running of the Bulls'," Harmony said, though clearly not sure about it herself.

"No," Cordelia smirked evilly. "In her case, I'm definitely thinking 'cow'."

Sure he was pressed for time, but Xander couldn't help but throw out a verbal counterstrike as he passed.

"Hey Mitch, what are you batting these days? .300? ._315_?"

".345," the young ballplayer corrected, sounding almost offended by the low guesses.

".345?" he said, mock impressed, then let out a low whistle. "Hear that, Cordy? That's a lot better than .315. I guess you know what that means, wink wink."

A slight squeeze of Willow's side told her it was time to move, but he did manage to hear Cordelia fuming behind him while ignoring her boyfriend's demands for an explanation.

They'd caught up with Buffy while she was still en route to the trio's usual stomping grounds, the Auto Shop classroom/garage.

"Buffy?" began Xander, forcing a casual tone. "Where're ya going?"

"To wherever the rebels without a brain cell are hiding," she answered, easily as angry as he'd ever seen her.

"I'm thinking we should hold off on that. Maybe wait until we're all cooled off enough that body bags won't be a big necessity?"

"Oh we won't be needing any body bags when I'm done with them," she answered back, rounding a corner to the right hallway. "Just a couple of…"

Their eyes widened as they saw a half dozen paramedics wheeling three familiar looking teens in coveralls out of the Auto Shop room.

"…gurneys?"

* * *

From what little they were able to get out of the EMT's before Principal Snyder shooed them to their respective homerooms, the three malcontents had broken into the school the night before. At some point, there was either a struggle, an extremely localized earthquake, or a stooge-worthy slapstick chain reaction that left Adams with a concussion, DeLuca with a concussion some cracked ribs from the tools he'd knocked over onto himself, and Sloane, clearly the worst off, with both of his shins almost completely crushed. Luckily, the car he'd been under had only snapped its front axle. If the rear axle had gone too, he'd be a human grease spot on the concrete. Even luckier, the three were only suffering minor damage from carbon monoxide poisoning because one of them had evidently forgotten to shut the door.

Xander had walked away with understandably mixed feelings. On the one hand, there was a definite feeling of closure that he never really expected from his run-ins with the bullies of Sunnydale High, a sense of karmic balance. On the other hand, these guys might have been complete jackasses, but they were still human. What happened to Vic, he didn't think he would wish on any living person that wasn't a huge fan of the swastika. Unless that living person was from India, where the _svastika_ existed for thousands of years as a holy symbol before the 1930's gave it a LOT of bad press.

Besides, the greasers' idea of a cruel joke had led to one of the best nights he could remember. Dream or not, he'd reached a level of clarity in that filthy janitor's closet that he might never have otherwise experienced, considering what therapists charged these days.

He decided it would be best just to put it out of his mind, for now. Buffy was going to ditch Phys Ed to search the Shop room, mostly to make sure that nothing Hellmouthy was behind it. In the meantime, he and Willow had just gotten out of Ms. Miller's class and, aside from having to listen to Cordelia deconstruct Shakespeare, he was feeling pretty good about it. Sure, he still wouldn't know Shylock the Jew from Shari Lewis, apart from the obvious sock puppet factor, but Willow's guilt over his afterschool ordeal had led her to write his entire outline for him.

As they neared Buffy's locker, their typical meeting place before their shared Gym class, he watched as Buffy was snubbed by Cordelia and the Brainless Trust as they passed out chocolaty voters' incentives for the upcoming May Queen elections.

This could not stand.

With a quick smile to Willow, Xander suddenly sped up. By the time he closed in on the high school royalty hopeful and her minions, he did a passable imitation of Dennis Rodman and flagrantly elbowed the box holding the golden-wrapped morsels. He then turned on a dime and put on his best "I'm sorry" face.

"Oh my God, Cordy," he said, squatting down to where she and the others were frantically trying to pick up the foil covered chocolate coins. "I completely didn't see you there. Are you okay? Here, let me help."

"Get away, mega-geek!" she shrieked, glaring daggers. "I'd be better off committing gross violation of the five-second rule than letting you infect my voting public with your failure cooties."

Without another word, Xander straightened up with a smile and walked back towards his friends.

"Hmm… " he said, as he opened his hand to reveal a small stack of shiny treats. "I guess she won't want these back, then. One for the savior of my G.P.A."

"Thanks, Xander," said his redheaded friend, catching the piece he threw to her.

"And one for the sworn protector of our hellish little corner of Americana," he continued, tossing one Buffy's way.

"Ooh, gotta love the perks," she beamed, then started to unwrap hers before looking up with a pout. "You get two?"

All three looked down at the two coins left sitting on his palm. Without thinking, he started to answer.

"Nah, this other one's for Mar-," he stopped himself, suddenly remembering his audience. "-rrrch 17, 2032?"

A lesser man might have told the truth at this point. A smarter man definitely would have.

"I'm, uh, making a St. Patrick's Day-themed time capsule… Yeah, for the three hundredth anniversary of the day old St. Paddy clubbed all the snakes out of Ireland. I can't afford a real pot o' gold, so gold foil wrapped chocolate'll do in a pinch. Now all I need is a couple shamrocks and a very flat snake. Preferably stuffed, to keep the SPCA off my back."

"Actually, St. Patrick's Day is the anniversary of the day St. Patrick died, and that was in 461 AD which will, you know, make 2061 the, um, _sixteen_ hundredth anniversary."

This was enough to shift Buffy's focus from one friend to the other.

"I had to read the history of St. Patrick's Day every year in elementary school because they thought I was Irish," Willow explained, then gestured towards her head. "Red hair?"

"So, 2061?" their guy friend broke in, quickly. "Thanks Wils, you guys are both totally invited to the capsule opening ceremony… in about… seventy… years. Oh there's the bell, bye!"

He dashed off before either of them could get another word in, heading straight for the impenetrable fortress of masculinity that is the boy's locker room.

The actual bell rang about a minute later.

* * *

It was another five minutes after Gym class had been ordered to hit the showers when Xander finally made it back to the locker room. Normally, he would've been one of the first ones there, a full hot water shower being anything but guaranteed at home, but this time he'd actually volunteered to gather up the loose equipment. He knew one or both of his friends would be waiting for him, and that only reminded him of the incredibly lame story to cover the almost-slip he'd made.

His Gym shirt was peeled off as he walked. Shoes, socks and shorts followed when he stopped in front of the locker where he stored the red and gold clothes between monthly washings. Grabbing one of the few remaining clean towels, he headed to the showers themselves and tried his best to ignore Mitch as he bragged to his cronies.

Why anyone would brag about Cordelia was beyond him. If there was ever a candidate for installing a "mute" button in a human being, she was it.

The shower room was empty, so he took his preferred spot in one of the back corners and turned on the water to just this side of scalding. He started by rinsing out the perspiration that matted his hair, wishing again that he could be secure enough in his own masculinity to bring shampoo from home, then let the water go to work on the rest of the sweat and dust on his body as he used his hands to help it along.

The almost mechanical act of showering never failed to put him in a zen-like state. His body on auto-pilot, it was much easier to let his mind work at whatever problems he had.

Most of the time, anyway.

Right now, any thought of that extra piece of chocolate only served to make him think about the one that'd been on his mind when he took it. He'd missed Giles this morning, but it was only a matter of time before he'd get the info he needed to find her. And just the prospect of finding her was giving him… thoughts.

Yeah, he only had to look down to see the evidence of these… thoughts.

Briefly, he considered switching to cold water, but he decided against it. He was the only guy in the showers, after all. The problem, as if any man would really call it that, would take care of itself by the time he finished getting dressed. Besides, it's not like he could help the… thoughts. No girl had ever kissed him like that, all fire and need and hunger. Even his fantasies of kissing Buffy were weak compared to the reality of that fevered moment with Marcie in the closet. But then, how real was that night? Just like he couldn't kill the hope that all of it had really happened, he couldn't kill the doubt that maybe it hadn't.

_Squeak!_

All thoughts fled at the sound of rubber on a slick tiled floor. It startled him enough that he did the worst possible thing for any guy to do after he'd been thinking… thoughts. He spun around to see who was there.

Nobody.

He was alone in the room, just like he thought. Still, to be safe, he immediately shut off the water and grabbed his towel. Wrapping it around himself, he rushed over as fast as the wet surface would allow and started to dress. What he needed right now was some fresh air, a chance to clear his head. As pleasant as it was to have those… thoughts, he couldn't let them go too far.

And seeing the empty outline of a girl's body in a cloud of steam was definitely too far.

* * *

"Is there any reason to suspect foul play?"

Giles had found them in the cafeteria at lunch. Naturally, he'd heard about what had happened in the Auto Shop room over the weekend and wanted to touch base with his Slayer, but Xander couldn't help but notice the single piece of printer paper the older gent was holding, with what looked like a printout of names on it. It was taking all of what little self-control he had not to rip it out of his hands.

"Plenty, those three made life hell for, like, a quarter of the kids here," Buffy answered her Watcher. "I just didn't see anything that made me think it was monsters. All three of them were still alive, no blood loss, no pieces missing…"

"Isn't it great that we need to check for that now?" said an unsmiling Xander. "Thank you, Talent Show. Ooh, sorry Willow."

He found himself having to reach over and lightly rub his friend's back until some of the color returned to her face. Any reminder of their stirring rendition of _Oedipus Rex _was enough to send the poor girl into near hysterics.

"Well, schools the world over have accidents of the non-demonic variety all the time," offered Giles. "Perhaps we were due. And considering the level of compassion they seem to show their fellow students, I daresay it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of delinquents."

As he said this, he was looking at Xander directly. Whatever claims he might make, and mean, about the teen being an annoyance, there was mutual respect, even fondness, there as well. Otherwise, that phone call would've never gotten him out of his duplex that early on a Saturday. He'd even felt the need to suppress certain impulses, one's from a time long ago that had been screaming for him to even the score with those little sods for this blatant attack. These urges had, of course, been ignored in the interest of maintaining his cover as a mild-mannered school librarian.

"Hey, what's that?" asked Willow, as she slid the list over from where it sat in front of Giles. "Abrams, Marcie… Dewitt, Marcella… Johnson, Marcia…"

Xander shot Giles a dirty look for his feeble paper-defending skills, prompting the older man to speak up, even as he snatched the paper back.

"There's been a, er, minor issue relating to, um, to one of my books on demon lore," he said, as the gathered students, Xander included, looked on in confusion. "I've been keeping them in the stacks with the others, considering how few students frequent the library. Apparently I've overestimated the American teenager's inborn distaste for the written word, because a girl who signed her name as 'Marcie' walked in and checked out my first edition copy of Gerhardt's Demon Almanac."

"So, you want me to track this girl down or what?" asked Buffy, sounding less than pleased about another drain on her free time.

"Actually, this is something that I've already entrusted to Xander," Giles explained. "He and I have recently had an opportunity to discuss his role in your calling. Traditionally, it's only ever been a single Watcher looking after the Chosen One. Seeing as we've been flouting tradition from the start, I've decided that it won't do any harm to shift some of my responsibilities to Xander or Willow so that I can focus on more pressing matters."

"Yeah, that's me. Alexander Harris, Junior Watcher," he ground out, wondering what this would cost him in terms of his own free time. "Hey, does that make me a Glancer?"

"I can help!" chirped Willow, scooting closer to her longtime crush. "I could cross-reference this list with any classes that might assign a paper on demonology."

"That's okay, Will," he tried, brushing it off. "The list's not all that long. It's got locker numbers and everything, so I can just go and ask around."

"Oh…" she looked down before perking up again. "Can I go with?"

Willow going with was the exact opposite of what Xander wanted right now. He could just imagine what would happen if he found the Marcie he was looking for with Willow standing right next to him. Still, there wasn't anything he could think to say that wouldn't set off warning lights in the girl's giant brain.

"Sounds good to me," he hid nearly all of his disappointment, her own denial handling the rest. "Lunch is just about over. We can probably go through half the list before next period."

"Okay," agreed Willow, standing with him before she got the paper from Giles a second time. "Hey, there's a line through this one."

"Weird," he said, taking a look at it as they exited the caf. "I guess it means she's not here anymore."

His book hunting buddy nodded her agreement, happy that they were already narrowing down the list of suspects. It also meant that Xander would be talking to one less girl, not that this "Marcie Ross" could ever hope to make him forget about Buffy. Nobody on this list, heck, nobody at this school could do that. And once he finally forced Buffy to tell him the truth, on the day she would have to break his heart, Willow would be right there to heal him. Ever since he'd called her on Saturday to tell her what happened, her and not Buffy, it convinced her even more that it was just a matter of time. And that she loved him enough to wait.

Back at the table, Buffy watched her two friends leave with a pensive expression on her pretty face. Something was up. Not in a Slayer senses kind of way, she was thankfully cramp-free. It was like her brain had made some kind of connection but it didn't have the common courtesy to let her know what. She did, however, have the distinct impression that it involved her best male friend in some way.

"Giles," she asked. "Do you think getting hit on the head can make you do things? You know, stuff you wouldn't do normally?"

"Do you mean in general?" her Watcher answered, making use of Socratic methodology. "Or should I just assume that we're going to be discussing our own recent victim of that sort of injury?"

"I know I've only known him for a few months," she admitted, "but I thought I had him mostly figured out. Now he's volunteering to help you chase down library books. And this morning… He was there when I came to get my weapons back."

"Weapons still sitting in my cabinet," Giles reminded her. "In fact, I think that we should have a few hours' training session after school to make sure that your weekend in Los Angeles hasn't dulled your skill in their use."

"Darn, I walked right into that," muttered the blonde. "But that doesn't change what happened with Xander."

"Something happened?"

"Yeah… or nothing happened," said Buffy, scrunching up her nose. "He made it sound like nothing was going to change."

Pushing herself away from the table, she stood and waited for her Watcher to do the same. They were already at the library doors before she continued.

"He said he doesn't want to date me anymore."

"I wasn't under the impression that he was dating you in the first place," Giles said, puzzling at the statement.

"You know what I mean," Buffy snapped, but it lacked any heat. "He said he was going to stop chasing after me."

"I'm not about to try and delve too deeply into the mating habits of the modern teen," the librarian began, producing a square of cloth from his jacket pocket. "But Xander has been anything but subtle about his interest in you. If you'd wanted to be 'caught,' I doubt very much that he'd have needed to keep up the chase this long."

"I didn't," she said, then caught herself. "I _don't_. It's just… You weren't there. You didn't hear what he was saying to me. It was this big speech where he told me everything he loves about me. Nobody's ever said anything like that to me before, not even my mom and dad. He kept going on and on about all these things he sees in me, things _I_ barely see in me. And then he says he knows that I don't feel that way about him, so now he's suddenly fine to stay just friends? Like he doesn't matter at all?"

"I'd give him a bit more credit than that, Buffy," he gently admonished his Slayer as he pulled his glasses off his nose. "It was always his choice, to pursue you romantically or not. He's likely just doing what he thinks is best."

"Best for me!" she shouted back. "I mean, I know he's loyal, and I know he can be sweet, but not like this. There has to be something else going on here. Something that's making him change. Oh! Oh… Oh, my God… He's got another... another… How? When? Oh, my God…"

He paused, spectacles defogging in his hand from when he'd breathed on them. Had she really put it all together so quickly? His ruse about the missing text was something he'd pulled out of thin air, hardly airtight. Just the same, he couldn't help but be a bit impressed at his Slayer's reasoning skills. Now, if only she could employ them in matters other than high school romantic melodrama. He let out another hot puff on his eyewear then got to work with the soft fabric as he waited for Buffy's grand revelation.

"He's possessed! Again!"

Giles jerked in shock, almost snapping off an earpiece in the spastic movement.

"What?" he sputtered.

"I thought Willow was just joking but… it fits," Buffy continued, ignoring him. "He's loyal. He's lovable. He's eager to please… "

"Buffy…"

"Xander's been possessed by a **puppy**!"

Someday in the far future, after a chaos magic-induced transformation leaves him in the body of a Fyarl demon, the look of pure annoyance he was wearing would save his life. He chose his next words very carefully, trying desperately to keep his temper in front of the distraught young girl who could bench press a small car.

"Buffy, I assure you that Xander… that _no human being_ has ever suffered from, from _puppy_ possession."

"But you were wrong about it before," she reminded him, heatedly. "You were all 'Oh, teenage boy. Oh, testosterone. He'll get over it. I say, pip pip cheerio!' Yeah, well tell that to Herbert the pig. Oh wait, you can't. Because possessed Xander _ate him_!"

Presently, Giles wasn't sure what was more insulting, the reminder of what his previous failure to listen had cost or the girl's horrid attempt at an English accent.

"I think you should take a moment, and think very carefully about what you're suggesting," he offered, patiently. "Do you really believe Xander would have to be under the influence of a… of some mystical entity in order to move on?"

To her credit, Buffy did appear to be thinking. The nervous energy was draining out, but it had the unfortunate effect of leaving her with sagging shoulders and downcast eyes.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" prompted Giles. "For him to accept your friendship for what it is?"

"Yeah…" she replied, but still seemed less than cheery. "It felt nice, sometimes. To know I had that kind of effect on him. It made me feel, I don't know, wanted? Desirable? And then I find out all these things he never told me about before. I mean, it's never been 'Ooh Xander, I drool,' but he's not bad looking. I just… and with Willow… Be honest, Giles. Do you think Xander and I would ever work, you know, as a couple?"

He resisted the temptation to ask her "a couple of what?" and gave the best answer he could, all things considered.

"Honestly, I believe that you have a destiny greater than any man you're ever likely to meet, myself included. As your Watcher, I can't encourage you to make any sort of entanglements that could distract you from what might literally be the fate of the world."

The Watcher watched as she collapsed a hair further into herself and went on.

"That being said, I don't suppose I have it in me to forbid them to you, either, where some Watchers would and have tried in the past. As for Xander, he is a-an uncommon young man. Brave, but not typically reckless. Concerned for the well-being of others. Also, I daresay these puppy-ish traits you've been noticing in him are hardly any recent development. Though, at times, I wonder if he's ever been properly housetrained."

The short laugh she'd let out was fairly gratifying. It obviously wasn't any simple thing for her usual source for lifted spirits to be the very same person leaving her so conflicted.

"But the fact remains that you're both so very young. I won't be callous and say these emotions aren't genuine, but they can be fickle. At your age, romance is often like a fireworks display, spectacular in its intensity but ultimately... brief. Do you understand?"

"I think so," said a clearly less troubled girl. "I guess I was just mixed up by everything that got dropped on me this morning. Emotions run high, you can't always be rational. Well, maybe _you _can."

"Believe me," he assured her. "Since the moment you first walked through those doors, rationality has been slipping further and further out of my grasp."

* * *

Xander couldn't help but reflect on just how screwed up this day had been. While he unconsciously held the library's side door open for Willow, his brain was busy going over every single dumb decision from that French dunce cap he'd been wearing to his St. Paddy's Day time capsule right up to his most recent failure.

They'd crossed off every single name on the list, about half during lunch and the rest from wandering around after school. Obviously nobody knew a darn thing about Giles' fake cover story, but he'd still gotten a good look and a few words out of every single one.

Most of them he'd ruled out instantly, a blurry picture of the girl from that night already in his mind. He'd been hopeful about the rest, but none of the possible faces had even come close to the voice. It was really starting to drive home the possibility that there was no girl, except for in his head.

Of course, Willow picked up on his mood, if not the real reason for it.

"It's okay," she soothed, following him through the stacks into the open area of the library. "Nobody's gonna blame you for not getting the book back, yet."

Whizzing inches past his head, an ornate dagger the size of a Bowe knife imbedded itself in the wall right behind him.

"Okay, maybe they do blame you!" squeaked Willow, eyes wide and feet frozen in place.

"Oh my God, Xander!" a frenzied Slayer shrieked, running across the room. "Are you okay!"

"I'm… fine," he murmured, waiting for his pulse to drop to more normal levels. "I just wish you'd ask before using me for barber practice."

"Please," she huffed, mock annoyed but clearly relieved. "Barbers are old guys with white smocks and moustaches. I'm a hair _stylist_. Much sexier."

"You know, I think we might have something here. What if the real reason the vamps are so mad at humanity is that the whole 'no reflection' thing means they've been paranoid about bad hair days since they were turned? Buffy the Vampire Stylist. It could work. Maybe we put some time into improving your chairside manner a bit first but… Willow?" Xander stopped his spiel to see that his best friend hadn't moved. "Wills? WILLOW!"

"EEP!" she yelped, then surged forward to latch onto him even tighter than she had that morning.

"This is getting to be a thing with you, isn't it?" he muttered fondly before he carefully pried her off and turned towards his other best friend. "So, what's with the flying cutlery? Or were you really trying to tell me you don't like the sideburns?"

"I see your sense of humor… such as it is, remains unscathed," deadpanned Giles from beside them, though he had a smile for all of them right after. "The, uh, 'flying cutlery' you noticed after wandering into our improvised target range would not have been nearly so problematic if you'd only come through the main doors like everyone else."

"Maybe," he countered. "But, I'm pretty sure you could walk through any door in _any_ other library in the country and not have to worry about anything deadlier than a paper cut. Could be just some British thing I'm not familiar with, I guess."

"Could be," he allowed, showing a half-grin, before remembering their last meeting. "I nearly forgot, how did your search go?"

"It didn't" said Xander, dismally. "No luck at all."

"Yeah," Willow agreed, finally speaking up again. "Sorry, Giles. None of the girls we asked knew anything about your book."

To his credit, Giles managed to catch himself before he asked "What book?" That would've been a lovely disaster. Not to mention the fact that he'd long since forgotten the name he'd made up. Gestalt's Demon Index? Whatever it was, Willow would have undoubtedly memorized it.

"Yes, well…" he prepped another little white lie, to cover his first. "We've had some good luck on that particular front. It seems that the book was returned while I was with all of you during your lunch period. To prevent it from happening again, I've taken the liberty of moving it someplace much less accessible, at least to the students."

"Oh," Willow shrugged. "Well, that's good, I guess. Sorta wish we'd known that before we spent all that time looking for it, but I guess it all turned out okay."

"Right…" he agreed, but sent a sympathetic look Xander's way. "I'm sorry."

Xander took the look, as well as the apology, for what they were and smiled wistfully at the older gent.

"It's alright, Giles. What matters is that, if something like this comes up again, I think I'll have a lot better idea of what to look out for."

Something like understanding passed between the two men. Something that left both of the women with them feeling slightly out of the loop, but not enough that either was willing to mention it. Taking advantage of the sudden silence, Buffy bounded up to her Watcher and stared up at him expectantly.

"So, that was almost an on-the-job accident, huh?" she asked, innocently. "We should probably call it quits early, don't you think? For insurance purposes?"

"While I rather think our Slayer's Insurance premiums will survive," her Watcher answered with a roll of his eyes, "I was about to suggest that you escort Xander and Willow to their homes, seeing as it's after sunset. Once you've finished with that, you can do an abbreviated patrol then end for the day."

"Or I could take them home and not patrol," Buffy counter offered. "Maybe get some sleep for once?"

She, of course, knew as well as he did that a Slayer's metabolism allowed her to function at peak efficiency with only three of hours sleep per night.

"I hardly think that…" he had to stop and berate himself for likely being the first Watcher in millenia to be swayed by a pouting Slayer. "Oh hang it all… Take the scenic route home and we'll call it even."

"I love my Watcher," she beamed. "All right, guys. Come with me if you want to live."

"Bye Giles," Willow said with a giggle, following Buffy out.

"Later Giles" added Xander, catching up. "Hey, Buff. Who would win in a fight, Slayer or T-1000?"

They were completely out of earshot, even for a Slayer's superior senses, when a figure stepped out of the shadows between aisles of books. A figure with broad shoulders, a face that many have called angelic, and hair that was in dire need of a Vampire Stylist.

* * *

"That's not her!"

"Short, blonde, pretty… That's exactly what Rico said she looked like. You remember Rico, don't you? The guy who walked into Willy's with half a stake jammed in his eye socket?"

"I'm telling you it ain't her!" snarled Andreas, vampiric features only adding to the effect. "I hear the same damn rumors you do, and they say that this Slayer chick only goes out hunting all alone, looking all helpless so she can bait the baby vamps."

"Did you ever think that, maybe, she's not hunting right now?" Samuel asked, not even bothering to crouch with his friend in the bushes of the park. "That, maybe, she wasn't planning on doing anything to anybody not morbidly stupid enough to get in her face?"

"For the last time, that's _not_ the freaking Slayer!" he hissed, then… well, literally hissed. "What, are you telling me you're such a little bitch that you're never going to eat another cute little blonde because she might be this big scary Boogiegirl of the undead?"

"Damn straight," he replied. "Back when I was alive, I cut red meat completely out of my diet. If it helps me live longer, I got no problem watching what I eat."

"You know what? Screw this! Screw this and screw YOU!" Andreas spat. "I'm gonna go find Dan and Sally. A couple of _real_ vampires'll be thrilled to get three teenage hot lunches. I'll save you some, if I _remember_."

Samuel shook his head as his last remaining childe sprinted off in the direction of his two idiot friends. It was just as well. That hot-headed kid was the only thing keeping him in Sunnydale, anyway. California was not the place for a vampire, Hellmouth or no Hellmouth. Seattle, now there's a vampire town. Cloud cover three hundred days out of the year. The sort of place where a monster could live like a man. But this time, he didn't care how clingy and demanding they got, he was only siring women. One more childe like Andreas, he was liable to take a short leap onto a long stake.

* * *

"Of course we're assuming there's no Kryptonite in the immediate area," groaned Xander. "That's pretty much a given. Unless the other guy has Kryptonite-related powers, can outrun Superman long enough to go find some, or can create it out of thin air, Kryptonite is not a factor."

"Maybe not thin air, but she could turn something else into Kryptonite, couldn't she?" Willow argued. "Like a regular rock or something."

"Okay, one: unless she's secretly an alien, I'm pretty sure radioactive space rocks are a little out of her league," he shot back. "And two: even if she did know how to make it, she has to go through this huge song and dance routine before she can do anything, meanwhile we got a guy who's faster than a speeding bullet. No contest."

"Alright," Buffy broke in, acting as unofficial judicator. "I think it's fair to say that Superman would probably win in a fight against Cinderella's Fairy Godmother."

"Thank you," said Xander, smugly. "Although I will allow that the whole kindly old grandma look might've had him hesitating a little. Add in the little cartoon mice, and it's a grim day in Metropolis."

"Okay, my turn," Willow said with a light giggle. "Who would win in a fight between… uh, James Bond and… oh, and Dracula?"

"Dracula, definitely."

The voice was masculine, deep, and not even remotely Xander's.

As one, they turned to see three unfamiliar faces staring at them from the mouth of an alley. On the far left against a brick wall, the obvious speaker grinned, greasy dark hair hanging over his eyes and down his back. His long coat was leather with a black t-shirt underneath, below that a pair of tight black pants with way _way_ too many zippers. On the opposite side was a much taller man, hair shaved millimeters from the scalp. A white tank top did nothing to cover his tattooed arms, and oversized pants were barely held on by a black belt covered in metal studs. In between, almost literally hanging off of the two boys, was a girl about Willow's height with long blond bangs and twin pigtails. The sweater she was wearing would've been about six sizes too big if she hadn't cut the bottom part off to hang just below her breasts, exposing her flat stomach. Her micro miniskirt ended inches down her thigh, transitioning to black lace stockings and black army boots.

"What?" asked the one in the coat. "Can't we play, too?"

"Sorry," said Buffy, carefully moving between her friends and the new arrivals. "But I'd say we're fine with just the three of us."

"Maybe we could teach you some new games?" offered the taller one. "Three guys, three girls. Sounds like a party to me. I bet we could have all kinds of fun."

"I don't think we should," Willow quavered. "I mean, it's a school night. We should really be getting home."

"And what about you, tiger?" the girl purred, clearly giving Xander the eye. "Do these little girls speak for you, or are you a big boy? Want to break some rules with me? I promise you won't regret it."

She punctuated the promise by sending a come-hither look to him over her shoulder as she slid the sweater down over it, revealing more and more flawless and entirely too pale skin.

"Tempting," Xander lied… mostly. "But I'm a firm believer in democracy, and we've already got two-thirds majority saying 'no thanks.' No offence."

"Maybe I'm not feeling all that democratic right now," the apparent leader growled, his features appearing to melt into grotesque vampire game face.

"You might wanna back off," Buffy warned, reaching into her purse. "I'm serious. I've got mace."

The hungry trio laughed, even as the other two vamps showed their true colors. Smiling like Death, Mr. 80's-Zipper-Pants lunged at his meal… only to get a 20lb. spiked iron ball slammed into the side of his head, knocking him out of the air and off to one side.

"I told him I had mace," the Slayer mused innocently, the weapon swinging by its chain like a pendulum.

Instead of backing off, both vamps rushed her as one, knocking the weapon from her hand and the purse from off her arm. They all landed in a heap a few feet away, with a pair of kicks from Buffy launching the hungry undead away immediately so she could kick up off of the ground. Unfortunately, she'd put them between her and the weapons that'd spilled out of her handbag and onto the sidewalk. Hand-to-hand would be the order of the evening.

The Chosen One flowed like water from strike to block to strike, moving faster than any human eye could follow. The distinct lack of human eyes in her opponents was not working in her favor. Alone they would've been dust in the wind after about five seconds, but two supernaturally powered beings against one was very different and these two seemed to know each other well enough to compensate for the other's weaknesses.

She ducked a haymaker only to catch an uppercut. Barely stunned, Buffy still managed to miss the tall vamp rushing to get behind her until she was already caught in his choke hold. The lady bloodsucker ran her tongue along her right fang, giddy with the anticipation of the kill.

Then she exploded.

Both Slayer and vampire stared, shocked, through the cloud of dust that was once a non-living, non-breathing, creature. Sure, the dusting part was unexpected, but the _how_ of it really had them gawking.

There, about four feet off the ground, was the cherry wood stake Buffy had carved about two weeks ago.

And nothing else.

The stake was floating in mid-air. It dropped with a clatter on the cement a few seconds later. For a second, nobody moved.

Then, Buffy was given a reminder of why blunt force trauma is only an opener in the world of vampire slaying. They tend to get up afterwards, which is just what that first vamp was doing.

Xander watched, terrified, as the vampire climbed shakily to his feet. The entire left side of his face was a mess of burst flesh and bone fragments, but that only accentuated the inhumanly pissed off glare in his remaining eye. In an instant he was on his back, the monster snarling and bleeding above him. Somewhere, Willow screamed.

Instinct had saved his life, bringing his legs up to reinforce his straining arms as the half-mad corpse snapped his fangs open and shut in his rage. A look to the side showed Buffy, who'd seen his predicament but was still tied up with the other vamp. Then, he noticed the stake on the ground between them.

Too far. It was only about five feet away, but it might as well have been a mile. Still, some insane portion of his brain decided to risk it. He threw one arm out, straining towards the weapon, even as the vampire pressed his new advantage. With only three limbs holding the beast back, it was only a matter of time before…

A slap of wood against flesh. Again, everything stopped. Again, human and vampire gaped at the sharpened piece of wood.

Jumped… The stake had jumped right into Xander's outstretched hand. That was the only way to describe it. Slowly, he brought the stake in front of his face, both he and the vamp staring at it with eyebrows raised and mouths hanging open.

A half second later, it was in the vampire's ribcage.

It's really best not to lose sight of the bigger picture in situations like these.

* * *

"And the third vampire?" Giles asked, unflappable British composure still yet to be flapped.

"Ran away," his charge answered shortly. "Probably just as freaked out as we were by the Mexican jumping stakes! Or did you forget that part?"

"It's not the sort of thing one forgets, Buffy," he retorted. "My concern is that, by allowing it to escape, it may reveal what happened to others of its kind."

"Well maybe I'd be a little more worried about somebody 'revealing' it if I had any idea what the heck happened out there in the first place!"

"Yeah," Xander spoke up, looking up from the redhead that'd latched onto him, again. "That was weird, even for us. It was like the stake had a mind of its own, or something."

"Actually, I believe that 'a mind' just may be at the root of all of this," said the Watcher, eyes alight with possibilities. "Not within the object, but channeled into the object. Telekinesis… Truly fascinating."

"Telekinesis?" asked Willow. "You mean somebody moved it with their brain? Um… Giles? Why are you looking at Xander like that?"

"Buffy hadn't seen the stake before it had already dispatched the first, and Willow had her eyes shut tight for the second," he explained. "Xander was the only one aware and focused for both instances. Add that to the extreme duress he was under, it fits perfectly."

"Am I hearing this right," Xander scoffed. "You're saying that I have some kind of psychic brain powers?"

"As ironic as that might seem, yes, I am," the older man smirked. "Do you think you could do it again? Something like this must be given very careful study. This book beside me, can you try to levitate it?"

The look he sent Giles was a clear question of the man's sanity, but he shrugged and concentrated on the heavy leather volume on the table. He thought about it rising, focused until he felt himself go red and start to sweat. Eventually, he let out a breath and shook his head.

"Nada," he said, vaguely disappointed in his continued lack of superpowers. "Sorry, Giles. I guess it wasn't me."

"Not necessarily," the Watcher contradicted. "It could simply be a matter of having the wrong mindset. If we could find a way to recreate the feelings you experienced that triggered your abilities…"

"'Recreate the feelings?'" Xander swallowed, nervously. "You mean the feeling of having an angry vampire on top of me trying to eat my face?"

"I doubt if it would have to be on top of you to achieve the desired effect," he mused, oblivious to the teen's growing panic. "Under more controlled circumstances, you'd hardly be in any danger at- OOF!"

The thick book that had previously been on the tabletop was now buried in Giles' midsection, doubling the man over. It jerked away, hovering for a moment before flying up and crashing back down on the bent man's skull, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

"Giles!" Buffy rushed to her Watcher's side, throwing a glare her friend's way when she got there. "Xander!"

"What? I didn't do it!" he denied, but thought again. "Did I?"

"It's, unng, i-it's quite alright, Xander," the Brit groaned, head on his Slayer's lap. "I probably should've thought better of that. Fortunately, I seem to have confirmed my original theory."

He was soon up on his feet with some help from Buffy. She, as well as Willow, seemed to be looking at the young man with a sense of wonder. Giles himself couldn't help but be slightly awed by the gift Xander apparently possessed.

"So…" he said, slightly uncomfortable at the sudden attention. "What happens now?"

"Several things," Giles explained. "First and foremost, we must see that this new power is fully under your control. This will involve several meditation exercises I'll be teaching you, as well as a demanding physical regimen."

"'Physical regimen?'" Xander echoed, uneasily.

"To further sharpen your focus," he replied. "Also, if you intend to use your new gift to aid Buffy in her duties, you'll be expected to know basic self-defense, as well as being in peak physical condition. In fact, Buffy could do with a sparring partner a bit closer to her own age…"

As Xander was beginning to dread his new prospects, Buffy and Willow were discussing the ramifications.

"Xander's a psychic…" whimpered the rapidly paling redhead.

"I don't think he's that kind of psychic, Wils," Buffy reassured her. "Your naughty daydreams are safe. Anyway, I'm not one-hundred percent sure about any of this. I mean, you know how, when vampires dust, they make a soft little 'poof' sound?"

"Yeah," Willow agreed, not sure what this had to do with anything.

"When that girl vamp dusted," she began, clearly not sure if she should even voice her suspicions. "I know this is going to sound crazy, but I could've sworn I heard something else. It sounded like… '_slut_.'"

A moderately shell-shocked Xander walked up before they could discuss it any further. As he grabbed for his book bag, Willow was reminded of something else.

"Hey, Xand?" she asked. "How much of 'A Merchant of Venice' have you read?"

That snapped him out of his daze but, if anything, he looked even more freaked out.

"Still in your locker?"

"Still in my locker," he confirmed, sighing in defeat as he led them out into the halls.

Quickly, he worked the combination. For the first time in awhile, he was looking forward to going home. It had nothing to do with the Chinese food his mom had ordered, it'd be cold by now. No, the day had been that long, and he just wanted to see the end of it. The door swung open, his hand darting out to grab the almost pristine, and unread, copy of the immortal Bard's work. As he did, he noticed a slip of paper floating out of his locker and coming to rest on the ground. Heart pounding, he faked having to retie his shoes. He managed to palm it without either of his companions noticing, and casually slipped it into his pocket as slammed the metal door shut.

Now he had a better reason to hurry home.

* * *

It took him the better part of twenty minutes to work up the courage to dial the number. So many questions, and he wasn't sure if he could take it if the answers weren't the ones he wanted. He put the receiver to his ear.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three…

"Hello?"

"Marcie?" he kept himself from shouting, but only barely.

"Yeah, who's this?" asked the soft voice on the other end. "Xander?"

"Yes!" this time he did shout. "I found your number in my locker. I mean I _just_ found it, like less than an hour ago. I wasn't even sure if it was real when you didn't pick up right away."

"Sorry, I was in another room," she said, calmly. "Or did you expect me to wait by the phone until you called?"

"No, nothing like that," he assured her. "I mean, I'm glad that you picked up at all. You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. The day I just had…"

"Oh? Why don't you tell me about it?"

* * *

In an empty hallway, barely illuminated by a small flashlight on the ground, a feminine voice could be heard. It asked questions, teased, made all sorts of appropriate sympathetic noises. Of course, anyone who might've cared to look wouldn't have seen a single soul.

Only a lone payphone. It's receiver off the hook.

Floating.

* * *

Author's Note:

So it's back to this. You know, I never actually considered my first chapter to be a one-shot story until a few of you brought it up. I decided to continue it anyway, hopefully in accordance with the general desires of my readership.

Now, according to the original challenge, I've apparently earned bonus points for that shower scene.

Yay me.

About the Buffy/Xander angsty stuff, I'm sure a few of you have some questions as to how accurate it feels. I'll say this much, Xander cannot for the life of him get any girl he's really interested in to look at him twice. He can, however, get girls he's not interested in to fall hopelessly in love with him. The main reason has to do with his tendency to trip over his words or use defensive humor when the person he's attracted to is close enough to make him nervous. As the series points out time and again, nervous Xander is the opposite of sexy. Now that he has somebody else on his mind, he doesn't feel nervous. Allowing him to make the kind of speech he never could have while he was still worried about how she considered him romantically. Of course, if none of you are buying any of this, just believe me when I say that it's mostly just me doing whatever I can to give Xander trouble later on.

Speaking of later on, I'm definitely doing a chapter based on the last episode of the first season, Prophesy Girl. From there, I'm going to focus one chapter on the summer between seasons 1 and 2 before going into the second season.

What I'd like to hear from you is what season two episodes you'd like for me to include. And yes, I will be doing a Halloween fic, and no Xander will _not_ be a two dollar costume king.

Thanks for reading. Reviews are appreciated. Long reviews remind me of why I'm doing this in the first place.

May every inch of you feel the sweet blessings, like a piano fallen from thirty stories upon your head.

Blessed be,  
-Brother Bludgeon

Editor's Note 10/18/2008: In the physical description of the vampiress Sally, the word "thigh" was mistakenly spelled as "thing," the resulting sentence being "Her micro miniskirt ended inches down her thing, transitioning to black lace stockings and black army boots." Once again, this was an error. Sally was not a pre-op transsexual with her weenie hanging out of her skirt.

Please forgive me for any confusion this might have caused.


	3. If She's Bad

A story dormant for 925 days suddenly rises, as if from the dead for no apparent reason?

Huh. Must be Tuesday.

* * *

Buffy the Vampire Slayer created by Joss Whedon

**He Can't See It**

**Chapter 3: If She's Bad…**

* * *

_Breath is life._

_Breath feeds the blood. Blood fuels the mind. Mind tempers the spirit. _

_Your body craves it, more than food or drink. _

_Lusts for it more desperately than pleasure. _

_Treasures it more than Love, no matter what the songs say. _

_And, so long as you live, you can never escape the need of it completely._

_What I offer you is a way to become its master._

_I warn you, it's no simple thing, to gain control over something so primal, so driven by reflex._

_Impossible, even, for some. Because there can be no control without first becoming aware._

_It must be removed from the unconscious mechanism you've relied on since birth._

_Let the air flow in through your nose, but don't smell it. Send it out through your mouth, but don't taste._

_Feel it._

_Feel as it moves through the passages, the cooling rush of air._

_Feel the pressure in your chest as it expands._

_Slowly now, let it out and in. As slowly as your will can make it. _

_This is your control, to slow the breath against every natural instinct._

_Complete focus, nothing exists outside of the path of your breathing. Empty yourself of everything else._

_Breathe out._

_Breath in._

_Out._

_And in._

_No worry, no doubt, no thought. Only breath._

_Out._

_And in._

_Out._

_And in._

_Out._

_And…_

"_ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz…_"

Rupert Giles, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a high school library, briefly removed his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. It did very little for his growing headache.

"Xander?" he said, softly.

The young man facing him, wearing loose workout clothes and sitting in a poor approximation of the lotus position, showed no sign of having heard. Other than another particularly loud snore.

"Xander," he tried slightly louder, with the same results. "Very well, but remember that you brought his on yourself."

Reaching behind him, the older man produced a small object. He'd had a feeling he would need it since they'd scheduled this session over the phone the night before. Pointing it away from himself and towards his new and rather unexpected trainee, he pushed the button on the top of the device.

Ever had an air horn go off three inches away from your face?

"NO GEESE IN THE ATTIC!" Xander shouted, and then followed up with a move so uncoordinated that he actually managed to fall from a seated position. "Who, what, where, huh!"

"Eloquent as ever," said the Brit, smiling sardonically. "Pleasant dreams, I trust. Something worth wasting what precious little time we have?"

"You're a sadist, a sadist in tweed," the teen grunted as he picked himself up. "Cut me a little slack, will ya? The sun wasn't even up when I got out of bed this morning. I thought my alarm clock was broken at first but, no, I really did set it for four o' clock in the too-early-for-anybody-but-farmers morning."

"And I suppose you expect my sympathy," Giles replied, gruffly. "Despite my rising at the same ungodly hour, entirely for** your** benefit, I might add."

"Sorry, Giles" he offered, with a barely stifled yawn. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, really I don't. It's just… I don't know. I guess I thought this was gonna be different."

"Different, how?"

"You mean aside from Ben Franklin calling me up and telling me I'm taking this 'early to rise' thing too far?" asked Xander rhetorically as he tried to get his left foot to stay on top of his right knee, a place where his foot felt like it had no business being.

"For now, I'm afraid that is unavoidable, which I thought I'd explained to you last night over the phone," he explained, trying to be patient. "As important as it is to bring your gift under control, it doesn't excuse you from attending class. Ignoring the fact that it would draw the wrong sort of attention, I'm not about to stand by while you sabotage your education."

Xander bit back the urge to compare sabotaging his education to somebody trying to plant a bomb on the Hindenburg, like everything was bound to go down in flames either way, and listened as the man continued.

"My afternoons and evenings are devoted to preparing the Slayer in the fight against the end of life as we know it and to whatever research that entails so, by simple process of elimination, early morning is the only -"

"Couldn't I just train after school with Buffy?" Xander cut in. "You already said I'm supposed to be her sparring partner now. I could do the psychic thing when we're not doing the sparring thing. The very light, non-bruising, incredibly shallow learning curve sparring thing."

"No," he said, firmly. "I am, first and foremost, Buffy's Watcher. Having you take part in her sessions is something I'll allow only because I believe she stands to benefit. If it seems, even for a moment, that you're holding her back, your participation ends there. I'm not unwilling to give you instruction, but I refuse to divide my attention between the two of you when the fate of humanity might well hang in the balance."

"Okay, okay, I get it," the younger man gave in mock-reluctantly. "No damning the world so I can sleep in. Fine, I can always up my caffeine intake. So, I get up at the buttcrack of dawn, and you teach me how to move stuff with my brain, on purpose this time, right?"

"That is the general idea, yes," Giles responded, uncertain.

"Then could you explain to me how the heck this is supposed to do that? You told me I was gonna learn how to meditate, but all you did was make me sit on the ground and listen to your rendition of the 'Wonderful World of _Breathing'_ in this super quiet, golf commentator voice."

"Breath control is among the most time-tested methods of entering a meditative state in mental disciplines the world over," the Watcher defended. "It focuses your attention inward, blocking out external distraction, while promoting tranquility and oxygenating the body."

"Oh," said a thoughtful Xander. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

"I should think it was fairly obvious," Giles answered, stuffily.

Of course, the real answer was that he'd considered explaining it fully and decided that it ruined the whole esoteric atmosphere he was aiming for. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"Right," Xander muttered, beating himself up inside for not figuring it out sooner. "So, should we try it again? I know it's probably a waste of time, but I promise I'll give it my best shot."

That softened the elder man's expression a bit. He hadn't meant for his last comment to sound as harsh as it had. It reminded him too much of his own father's tone, full of condescension and disappointment. He'd dealt with it by rebelling against everything the man stood for, but Xander seemed to take it to heart. There was a story there, he knew. Wisely, he decided that he should use this opportunity to build the lad up, not to unearth bad memories.

"Xander, believe me when I say that your best effort could never be a waste," he said, with some small warmth. "Not of time, nor of anything else. If I thought differently, I wouldn't have agreed to this in the first place. You should know that I have every confidence in your ability to learn."

"Well," the student in question was slightly overwhelmed at his teacher's sudden praise. "I guess you're one of those rare people that do. As of this morning, it's you, Willow, and the guy that administered the test when I was seven and my folks thought I might be retarded. So, we're giving inner peace another go?"

"Yes, let's," confirmed Giles, intentionally ignoring the reference to his childhood test. "Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Very slow, even breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Breath is crucial. Breath is life. Breath feeds the -"

"Could we maybe skip ahead?" Xander broke in, cracking one eye open. "Your delivery's great, don't get me wrong, I'm just not a big fan of reruns."

"Fine, to summarize: close eyes, breathe out, breathe in, repeat until you are one with the universe or the tardy bell rings, whichever comes first," Giles said, slightly put out. "Simple enough?"

"Yeah, I got it," he answered, squaring his shoulders to open his airways further. "Personally, I'm hoping for the universal oneness thing. If I'm late for homeroom again, Principal Snyder told me he'd be riding me for the rest of my high school career. Worst part is I can't be totally sure he meant it metaphorically."

"Then get to work, or I'll give him the name of a saddlery shop that won't ask too many questions," even as he said this, Giles had to cringe at the mental image. "Now, deep breath out, deep breath -"

_Grrrrrrrrrrrurbble… grrrb…._

The Watcher hung his head before slowly rising to his feet without a word. Walking away, he threw an incredulous glance back over his shoulder, noting Xander's sheepish smile.

"It was either skip breakfast or skip a shower," he explained with a shrug. "I made my choice."

Giles started walking again, not stopping until he was inside his office and out of Xander's sight. While the glum teen was cursing his stomach for ruining what he saw as his only chance to join the ranks of the Psi Corps. Or would have been his chance, if they were real and not just a made up organization of telekinetics and telepaths from Babylon V. And if they gave off less of a goose-stepping fascist vibe.

He was genuinely surprised to see the librarian leaving his office, especially when he saw what Giles was carrying. The little red ball, as unusual as it was, went mostly unnoticed. No, Xander's complete focus was on the box in other hand, its bright pink coloring so familiar that he could almost taste the round sugary goodness inside.

"Being an early riser does have his advantages," Giles began, unhurriedly returning to his seat on the floor. "Not the least of which is getting to the donut shop while the first batch is still warm."

Another growl, easily twice as loud as the first, escaped the student's empty stomach as the box was set carefully off to the side. Xander had to shake himself back to awareness when he realized that the red ball he'd ignored was now inches from his nose. He'd barely registered that it was there before it was dropped in his lap.

"Giles…" Xander picked up the ball, about an inch in diameter with a shiny coating, and rolled it between his finger and them. "If this is some kind of special meditation pill, it better be the kind you take by mouth."

"That," Giles replied, "is a child's toy I purchased for twenty-five cents at a vending machine. We'll be using it as the first practical exercise. Put your hands together like a half-open book midway between your chest and your navel. The goal is to levitate the ball out from between them, made a great deal easier by the objects small size and close proximity to your manipura chakra."

"That's next to the spleen, right?" Xander asked, and was answered by another exasperated sigh. "Gallbladder?"

"It's an internalized vortex of spiritual energy that deals with personal power and…" he paused and shook his head. "Forget it. If you can make the little ball float, we split the box. Six apiece, so long as you leave me some of the jellies. Deal?"

"Keep it down," the teen answered, seriously. "I'm trying to violate the laws of physics, here."

As Giles leaned back, silently congratulating himself for a well thought out plan, Xander was contemplating the hell out of that little red ball. His brain dragged itself out of the fog of the early morning and was buzzing with activity. He felt the weight of it, light and barely there. The texture was smooth, very smooth. Probably shiny, too, if you held it up to the light. What was that called when you make something smooth and shiny? Glazing. The little ball was glazed. Glazed… glazed like a sweet, delicious…

Xander took another deep breath, forcing himself to focus. A mental picture of the ball, that's what he needed to do. Visualize, see the ball, _be_ the ball…

Red. Red and round. Doesn't get much simpler than a little red ball. He saw it in his mind's eye, a dot of color on a field of black. Slowly, his world shrank away and there existed nothing but the ball. Nothing but the ball… and the blurry shape that was starting to form around it. Nothing but the ball, now perfectly framed by a freshly baked, sugar drenched, most important meal of the day treat that was so real he could practically smell it.

"Oh dear lord," the weary Watcher in front of him groaned, breaking the fairly shallow trance.

"Uh…" Xander stared at the donut hovering in the air between them. "That's gotta count for something, right?"

"It boggles the mind how I ever convinced myself this was going to be simple," Giles said, rising to stand. "But that would be entirely too much to ask, now wouldn't it?"

He retrieved the box, minus one donut that had floated into his student's outstretched hand, and dropped it off on the library table as he passed. From there, he went to the weapon's cabinet and came back with a medium-sized plastic container. Seeing that Xander now had his mouth crammed full of pastry, Giles continued without waiting for a response.

"I think we've devoted enough energy to the mental side, so it's on to physical training. How familiar are you with skipping?"

"'Skipping?' As in, 'to my Lou?'" he repeated, in insulted disbelief. "Okay, I know my best friends are girls, but I'm sick and tired of everybody doubting my masculinity. I don't skip or prance or sashay, either. So if you expect me to go skipping around here like some dainty little fairy boy, then no, I don't think so. Xander don't play that."

Shooting him a deadpan look, Giles reached in and pulled out a sturdy looking leather cord with lacquered wooden grips at either end, setting it down in a coil on the table.

"Rope, Xander. How familiar are you with skipping _rope_?"

"Oh, with-the-rope skipping! Like in the movies, the macho boxing Rocky Balboa jumping rope in a montage type skipping. I could do that." Xander walked to the grab the training tool from the tabletop but stopped. "You, uh, tend to get pretty sweaty doing stuff like that, huh?"

"I very much doubt that ever stopped Rocky Balboa," the Englishmen answered, dryly. "Exercise is sweaty business."

"I know that. It's just… I wasn't expecting to get all Eye of the Tiger on my first day. When I skipped breakfast to take a shower, it was so I _wouldn't_ smell like the patron saint of gym socks."

"Which, of course, is the reason you were instructed to wear something sensible to train in and bring a change of clothing."

"You don't get it," Xander pleaded his case. "Clean clothes over sweat just locks in the funk, and that's not even going into the pit-stain factor! And, really, I'm still not one hundred percent sold on how working out my body is going to do anything positive for my brain weirdness."

Giles paused, breathing deeply, and only by saying the numbers out loud would it have been more obvious that the man was counting slowly to ten. When he spoke again, his voice was measured, deliberate, and chock full of finality.

"This is not a discussion. This is not a debate or an argument. You are either willing to agree to the training I've laid out for you or you're not. The student obeys the teacher out of trust that all lessons have a purpose, even if that purpose unclear.

"The only reason why you came here is because you trusted that, despite my having no practical experience with telekinesis, my experience with the Slayer and the supernatural world gives me insight into your powers and the steps you need to take to master them. The only reason I am here is my belief that you have the will to take those steps. So you can prove us both right by picking up that rope and, once you've shown me a good effort, I'll see to it that there's enough time for you to take advantage of the showers in the locker room before classes start. Or you can-"

He didn't have time to finish his sentence as the rope in seemed to uncoil and launch itself at Xander with all the speed of a rattlesnake, hitting with a dull thud against his chest. The boy's hands shot up instinctively and kept it from dropping.

"Well…" he said, as they both looked down at the energetic exercise equipment. "I guess you talked me into it."

Walking out to an open space, he took the rounded wooden handles on either end of the leather cord and, a bit awkwardly at first, started to jump. After a few false starts, something easily fixed by cutting down on excess movement in his arms, he managed to get into a fairly comfortable rhythm. Nothing too fast, nothing fancy, but a good solid pace.

Giles, meanwhile, had gone into the stacks with a cart of books that needed re-shelving, taking care not to go out of earshot of the steady _snapTHUMP snapTHUMP _in case it ever stopped for more than a few seconds. Carrying on the good work of Dewey and his decimals was something familiar enough to be practically automatic, giving him a moment to think. The events of the morning had certainly given him a great deal to think about.

* * *

A newly clean Xander walked the student-filled halls of Sunnydale High, trying not to think about the new soreness in his muscles, or his damp hair, or the way his shirt stuck to the skin of his back in those few spots he hadn't dried all the way.

And he really didn't want to think about that odd musky smell in the boy's showers.

He'd been partially distracted the whole time he'd been toweling off and dressing, trying to remember the last time he'd come across that particular smell. The best he could come up with was the summer three years before, during a sleepover at Willow's house. It'd been the middle of the night when the shouting from inside the bathroom down the hall had woken him up, Jesse being fully capable of sleeping through anything softer than a choir of jackhammers. When he'd crept over to see what was wrong, he'd peered through the crack of the almost-shut door to see Willow's parent's arguing with each other while his friend sat on the edge of the bathtub, her face redder than he'd ever seen it. Her mom was going on about some guy named Alfred Kinsey, her dad kept bringing up the "latency phase," that exact same musky smell wafting around the door the entire time. Back then, he'd figured she must've gotten in trouble for not cleaning the bathroom or something, and that the smell had been some kind of mold. Had to have been pretty bad, she'd never been allowed to have another sleepover with them again after that night.

Nope, didn't want to think about any of that.

Instead, he preferred to focus on his last, brief conversation after his workout had been ended. Apparently, on the phone the night before, Giles had thought he'd sounded a little distracted and asked what it was about.

And so, he'd explained the technological marvel that was call waiting, as well as just who'd been holding on the other line. He and Marcie had talked for hours, neither one of them wanting to be the one to hang up first. It was probably the main reason he'd complained so much about getting up so early, he doubted he'd gotten 15 winks out of the recommended 40.

But it was worth it, and he'd said as much to Giles. Because, at the end of that phone call, and for the first time since kindergarten, Alexander L. Harris had a…

"Dickweed!"

No, that's not what he had. That's not what he had at all.

"Hey, dickweed!"

This second shout was punctuated with a hard shove of his shoulder, spinning him around to face a wall of… burgundy.

The Sunnydale High School Varsity Football Team. They could've probably made it to the division finals this past season if it weren't for the half dozen or so mysterious deaths that made fielding a full team all but impossible. He stared at the dozen or so of them, their letterman's jackets giving off a potent mix of elitism and intimidation. The speaker he could recognize as one Larry Blaisdell, a shaved gorilla with a reputation for chasing anything in a skirt and pushing around anyone smaller than him. That obviously included Xander as he was sent backwards a few feet with another push.

"You're blocking the hall, butt-stain," Larry sneered. "Move."

Xander was about to apologize and step aside, apparently he'd been so lost in thought he'd stopped in the middle of the hallway, but something about the situation seemed so wrong he couldn't stop himself from commenting on it.

"_I'm_ blocking the hall? Me, with my one, average-sized body, I'm the obstacle here? Wall-to-wall thyroid cases bunched up behind me, but I'm the Hoover Dam in this scenario. I mean, are you guys so literally joined at the hip that you can't even think about splitting up and walking around me?"

It was around that time that his brain put on one last desperate burst of speed and caught up with his mouth. Not soon enough.

"How about I make it so you can't walk, period, Harris?" Larry threatened, taking a step forward that would've brought him inside Xander's personal space if he hadn't taken a step back.

"But me walking, that's a good thing for all of us, isn't it?" he asked, nervously. "Me walking stops me from blocking the hall and keeping you scholar athletes from your homerooms."

"I'll get Snyder to write us up some hall passes," the jock said dismissively, taking another step forward and making him retreat another step back. "We'll say it's for a… team-unity thing."

"I'm helping the team," he weakly muttered. "Yay."

"Just hold still, this'll only hurt a-AAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!"

Jumping backwards to avoid the lunging bullies, Xander landed far enough away to see that it was less of a lunge, more of a face-plant followed by a dog pile. The graceless landing into a groaning heap was a huge surprise until he looked to his left and saw the metal case that normally held a rolled up fire hose was hanging open, with the hose running down from the case and along the floor, under the Varsity squad and out to the opposite wall.

It didn't take more than a few years' experience in studying cartoon physics to understand what'd happened. Somebody had pulled the hose out to trip up the first few guys, and the rest had followed them down like giant, meaty dominoes. The question was who.

It was a question that Xander was smart enough not to stick around and try to answer.

* * *

"We have questions, Watcher."

He was cornered, solid walls behind him. In front of him…

"Questions that we want answered."

In front of him was a creature that could tear him to pieces in seconds, grind his bones to powder as easily as he could crush a dried leaf, tear his head from his shoulders so quick he'd be able to watch his own body topple over.

"And we'll get those answers from you, one way or another."

In the face of this supernatural murder machine, Rupert Giles had only one course of action.

"I know for a fact that you should be in your biology class right now."

The supernatural murder machine pouted as her Watcher sidestepped her and re-shelved the book he'd been reading.

"Giles, this is serious!" Buffy whined. "Who can think of biology at time like this?"

"Willow, from the looks of it," he answered, gesturing with his head towards the exit, where the redhead was trying to quietly sneak away.

"Hey, you get back in here!" she said, and half-dragged her friend back into the library. "We need to show a unified front, total stick-togetherness is the only way we'll find out what he knows."

Friend in hand, Buffy rounded back on the librarian finger pointed accusingly.

"Something funny is going on around here. We walk into History class this morning and Xander's already sitting in his seat. Not just on time. Early."

"Was he? Do you suppose we should call out the National Guard, or is it already much too late for that? We may have to contact MI6, see if they can get James Bond on the next chartered flight."

"You mean he's real, too?" Willow asked, shocked, until she noticed the deadpanned look he was giving her. "Oh, sarcasm."

"The being early isn't the important part." Buffy continued. "He had seats saved for us, so we both sat down and started talking. Breezed through the easy stuff, homework, the weather, how _Rosanne _seems to be making less and less sense since they jumped the shark with them winning the lottery, but then we talked about hitting the Bronze after school. Only, he says he can't go tonight, because he's expecting a call… from his '_new girlfriend_.' So, Giles, you wanna guess what this '_new girlfriend's_' name just happens to be?"

Giles hadn't missed the irritation or the hint of betrayal in her speech, just as he hadn't missed multiple uses of "finger quotes." It was enough to make him wish that Xander's paramour had really been imaginary, as it would've saved him from being caught in such a moronically obvious lie.

"Mentioned it this morning, actually," he said, pacing the floor to avoid eye contact with either girl. "I believe he gave her name as Marcie Ross."

"That's right, _Marcie_ Ross," Buffy said, smugly. "So, how do you think got together? Standing in the same line at Starbucks, their hands accidently touching as they both reach for the same protractor in math class, or maybe their eyes met across the library when she came to borrow that bogus demon book?"

"I checked ever occult database I could find on the web, and nobody had ever heard of Gerhardt's Demon Almanac," Willow explained, sullenly. "Why didn't you tell us what those names were really for? Why go through all that to give him a list of girls with the same name as the one he's… dating?"

Giles stopped pacing with a sigh.

"If I tell you what I know, will you both just go to class?"

Willow nodded, probably already itching to continue her education regardless of the current relationship drama, and Buffy folded her arms and looked at him expectantly.

"According to Xander, Marcie Ross was a student here until last December-"

"Are you sure she went here?" Willow asked. "I don't remember anybody named Marcie Ross."

"Her departure pre-dates my arrival here by a full month, but she has her name and photo in the library's copy of the most recent yearbook." Giles gestured to the thin book on the table, which Willow picked up and began to leaf through. "Her parents were going through a fairly messy divorce and that, combined with the loss of her two closest friends several years before to mysterious and possibly supernatural circumstances, led to her take an extended absence. She's been home-schooled since then, either here in Sunnydale with her father or at her mother's new home in Thousand Oaks. Her mother has been trying to enroll her in the local high school there, so she recently came back here to request her transcripts. Unfortunately, she chose last Friday to do so."

"Billy's nightmare." Buffy shuddered as she recalled her own experiences that day, now feeling some sympathy for a girl who'd picked one of the worst possible days to visit.

"And, like the four of us, she wasn't able to dismiss what she'd seen as easily as the rest of the population," he continued. "She hid herself away even after everything had returned to normal. It was luck, good or bad, that her hiding place was the custodian's closet with the faulty door lock, the same one that Xander found himself trapped in. They spent much of the night talking which, after a head injury like that, may have saved Xander's life as it kept him from falling asleep at the wrong time. When the door opened the next morning, she rushed out to find someone to give him medical attention. Apparently she didn't find her way back until after he'd already left, leaving him to wonder if the whole thing had been some kind of dream. It didn't help that he'd never gotten around to asking her last name."

"So the whole thing with the book…?" Willow asked, sounding slightly overwhelmed as she heard the full story for the first time.

"Xander's attempt at a subtle ruse to keep embarrassment to a minimum, should the whole thing turn out to be something he imagined. As she's no longer a student here, it failed utterly. But it seems she remembered his locker number from earlier in the year, because she slipped her telephone number inside. He rang her last night, they spoke late into the night, and apparently they've decided to make a go of it."

Things got quiet for a moment, Giles waiting while the girls processed. Finally, Buffy asked the pertinent question.

"Can we trust her?"

"She is a… a largely unknown factor," he admitted. "I'd wager every relic in the Smithsonian that she's not a vampire, even Xander couldn't be that oblivious, but to experience the paranormal without taking refuge in denial and repression is uncommon. There could be any number of explanations, a desire not to end her new relationship with someone actively involved in such things, or a prior brush with something inexplicable that suddenly has an explanation. As I see it, we're most likely dealing with a lonely and frightened teenage girl who stumbled into all of this much the same as Willow and Xander did."

"So what do we do?" asked Willow.

"Something that may be difficult for all of us. We trust in Xander's judgment."

The two teens shared a worried look.

"With the threat of the Master hanging over us," Giles continued, "there's little time to investigate what amounts to a long-distance high school romance. Besides, recent events have proven he's not exactly defenseless on his own."

* * *

"HARRIS! How about a little DEFENSE out there!"

Xander groaned as he slowly picked himself off of the muddy grass. The bad news was that his team was now down 7-0. The worse news was that the football they were playing wasn't the normal American kind, where being down by seven points wasn't too bad. It was soccer, where being down seven goals can be reasonable justification for ritual suicide in some countries.

The worst news, he was the goalie.

All seven goals sailed right past him between those little orange cones they were using instead of an actual net.

Was it irony that he'd taken the goalkeeper position because he'd figured his body was too sore from his morning workout for a lot of strenuous activity? Maybe, considering that this had been the fourth time he'd attempted, and failed, a diving save that resulted in him slamming his "too sore" body into the unforgiving ground. And he couldn't take it easy now, not with all the death glares his teammates were giving him. Less than half of them probably cared about winning and even fewer cared about gym class in general, but nobody liked losing this bad.

And there, a few yards away exchanging high-fives with the rest of the winning team, was the root of his problem.

"Bad" Brad Konig, the bane of his Phys Ed existence. Perpetrator of more cheap shots, flagrant fouls, low blows, and old fashioned beatings than anybody to ever pull on a pair of gym shorts, and proud of that fact. And the only shot he'd missed the whole game was the one he'd forced Xander to block with his face.

He wiped off some sweat, probably rubbing in some dirt in the process. No more. He didn't even like soccer. Or most sports. Dodgeball was kinda fun that one day, but he'd been possessed by an evil hyena spirit.

But none of that mattered right then. He was done being showed up by some sweaty schoolyard screw-head. It ended here.

Balancing the ball in one hand, Xander dropped and kicked it with all his strength, sending it well into the midfield. Now he'd play the waiting game, bide his time until that irritating blob of hot air wrapped black and white plastic made its way back to him. Considering no less than three members of his team were already sitting Indian-style on the grass, he wouldn't have to bide for very long. Quitters.

Practically uncontested, the ball was back at his end of the pitch. Slowly, it rolled to a stop just inside the front line of the goal box. He'd been expecting this, Brad had baited him just like this twice already. Wait until the idiot goalie scrambles forward to grab the ball, then rush up and kick it into the empty goal. He wasn't falling for it, not this time.

Didn't step forward, didn't even look away from the ball to see the expression on that smug jerk's face, he just stared straight at the ball and waited.

And waited.

There. Heavy footsteps on the grass, Brad had finally given up waiting for him to leave the goal. He was gonna have to get this one by him the old-fashioned way. Or he was gonna try and aim the shot directly for the body, possibly the nuts. Either way, Xander wasn't letting that ball past him again.

Closer. He could see Konig's feet as they pounded towards their target. He pulled back his leg, winding up for a powerful kick and…

"Whiff" went the empty space around Brad's foot as he missed the ball completely, "AUUUUUUUUUGHH!" went Brad as the lack of resistance threw him off balance, sending him off his feet and "**WhuUUFFF!**" went all the air in his lungs as he landed flat on his back.

There was a moment when the only sound you could hear was wind blowing across the grass. Which was immediately and entirely drowned out by everybody laughing.

Xander couldn't believe it. After all that abuse he'd handed out over the years, Brad Konig was finally taking bitter pill that was justice.

Make that choking on the bitter pill that was justice. Now coughing. Now gasping. Now… was he crying?

The goalie jogged forward, gingerly stepping around the figure pitifully crawling to the sidelines, and bent to pick up the ball. He stared down at it, turning it over a few times in his hands. A call from his teammate, one of the standing ones, made him cut his musing short as he settled for a distracted throw-in.

He'd been watching the ball the whole time. Brad's kick should've been right on target, had been right on target. The ball had been at a dead stop. But then it wasn't, it just… moved, right as the kick was coming, just far enough for him to miss.

Almost like it had a mind of its…

Oh.

* * *

_Oh._

_My._

_GOD!_

_How is it that I never did anything like this before now?_

_What have I been doing all this time?_

_Hiding like a rat in the walls, bitching and moaning about how nobody knew I existed._

_And what the hell was I doing to prove them wrong? _

_Not a damn thing. Just sat and schemed like some villain from a Saturday morning cartoon._

_And it wasn't even a good scheme!_

_Red paint? Chalk?_

_Look? Listen? _

_Just more attention for that stuck-up little… ugh!_

_God, how big of a freak am I if he ever finds out about the scalpel…?_

_No, this is better. _

_Simple. Spontaneous._

_Harmless. _

_A little harmless payback. _

_It's what he wants, what we both want. _

_I can give him everything he wants. BE everything he wants._

_He wants to hang out with a super hero?_

_I can be his super power. I can be the gift that makes him gifted. _

_And when he finds out that it's me, that I'm out there helping him, that I'm not afraid…_

_But, right now, it's me that could use some help._

_It's been great, better than great, but I've just been ad-libbing so far. _

_Can't just keep winging it. Need to have some kind of plan going in._

_And that plan is… _

_A… "kick me" sign? _

_Ugh, maybe I can find a book on practical jokes or something. _

_How is it that your average bully can be so dumb, but still make bullying look so much easier than it really is?_

* * *

Rodney Munson was never going to be a Rhodes Scholar. With his grades, the closest he would ever get would be a road paver, or possibly a roadie for some thrash metal band. Most would assume this was a result of low intelligence, or that he just didn't care.

In reality, Rodney Munson suffered from an undiagnosed, and therefore untreated, case of mild Tourette's Syndrome. He was unlucky enough that his symptoms, those vocal or motor tics associated with the neurological disorder, were easily misinterpreted when they first started to manifest at age 7.

When he repeatedly ground his teeth, his parents got him braces. His haphemania, or compulsive touching, made him want to touch anything that caught his attention, whether it belonged to him or not. The vocal tic that compelled him to growl and bare his teeth when he felt uncomfortable, like in situations where someone wanted him to return their property, didn't help much.

More than half of all TS cases also show symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. His inability to focus in class cemented Rodney's reputation as a moron. His ritualistic behaviors, especially the ones that involved violently assaulting a fellow student every day for five years, cemented his reputation as a bully.

Bullies, in Sunnydale, were largely ignored by teachers, parents, principals, even the police. Maybe they were just playing odds, either the bully or the victim would "disappear" on their own eventually, if you left them alone long enough. Either way, Rodney had been allowed to slip through the cracks of the educational system. But that all changed when someone decided he might benefit from a tutor.

Willow, aside from knowing all the material practically by heart, was patient, kind, forgiving, and totally non-threatening. She explained things in ways nobody else had ever bothered to try, not moving ahead until she knew he understood. And he was learning, so long as she was there to make sure he didn't skip those things his eyes seemed to refuse to focus on. Rodney desperately wanted to do well, to make her proud of him. He even managed to break a ritual for her, by not beating up her friend Xander every day.

Speaking of her friend Xander, there he was getting out of the cafeteria line with his food. Sloppy Joe day. Rodney looked down at his own Sloppy Joe, then at Xander's. Pushing back from the empty lunch table, he stood up. Somehow, Xander's Sloppy Joe looked so much more interesting.

* * *

"Eating light?"

Xander distractedly followed Buffy's line of sight to his tray, specifically the empty space where his sandwich used to be.

"Huh? Oh… uh, yeah," he stammered, trying to cover the fact that he hadn't noticed before. "You know what they say, 'garbage in, garbage out.' And garbage might even be too generous when we're describing cafeteria food. Besides, Giles has me working out in the mornings, now. Good a time as any to start watching my caloric intake."

Looking over his friend's shoulder, he watched what he'd been about to eat as it crossed the room in the grip of his old tormentor, Rodney Munson. The sinking feeling that'd started the second the bully in braces had stomped up to him wasn't going away, it was getting worse. The light leading touch on his arm made him break the stare. He soon found himself seated between a somewhat glum Willow and a Slayer with smile that felt equal parts fake and dangerous.

"Your morning workout. We heard a little something about that, didn't we Willow?" she asked, continuing on after receiving a half-hearted nod from the redhead. "Apparently you and Giles got real… chatty, especially about your new girlfriend."

"Not chatty, per se," he deflected, lamely. "Boring conversation, really. Probably better that you didn't have to hear it, I bet it was much more interesting having him sum it up after."

Both girls looked at him strangely, but he didn't see it. He was looking between them, at the one table in the caf that was mostly empty. Not focusing on Rodney, or the way he was dissecting the stolen Sloppy Joe with a plastic spork like some kind of alien autopsy. No, his eyes were glued on the half-eaten Joe that was on the table.

At least most of it was on the table. The top bun was hovering a few inches above it. Just high enough to let a thin paper napkin, also floating, slide in between the bread and the beef. He started to reach out his hand, at a loss as to whether he should call out a warning or just…

"Xander!"

His eyes snapped to the irritated blonde, then to the slightly concerned redhead.

"I… He… with the… Just listen for a second, I-" he tried, but Buffy wasn't having any of it.

"How about you listen, since we have your attention now? You shouldn't have lied to us."

"Technically," Willow spoke up, "it was Giles that lied first. Xander just went along with it."

"That doesn't matter," she shot back. "He still tried to keep it from us. If you don't want us to know something, don't try and hide it from us, just say it's none of our business. Even though it's totally our business because we're your friends and we have to trust each other with our lives going out to fight-"

Willow not-so-subtly coughed.

"- fight… boredom. And now you're thinking about bringing somebody new along, maybe even want her to fight boredom with us some night, and you expect us to be okay with that? Xander?"

The little plastic straw, still dripping milk from the little carton it'd floated out of, flipped and stuck one end of itself into an open and half-full condiment packet. Xander could just make out the little dark spot on the white straw. Much easier to spot the fiery red orange coloring on the packet, he didn't even need to be able to read the lettering to know it was hot sauce.

"I'm not trying to do this," he said, weakly. "It's just happening…"

Buffy bit back what she was going to say next, her expression softening. Reaching across the table she took one of Xander's hands, worrying slightly at how slack it was in her grip. She sent a meaningful look at Willow who got the message and took his other hand, stroking the back of it, gently.

"Hey, it's not like this is completely a bad thing," she soothed. "Giles told us how you met her. People in those kinds of situations together, they bond. And yeah, they don't have to try, it does just happen. It's even a little romantic, when you think about it."

She'd hardly finished saying it when she winced and glanced over at her other friend.

"It's okay," Willow said, trying very hard to mean it. "I… we just want you to be careful. 'Cause, you know, relationships that start under intense circumstances never last. There've been extensive studies."

Xander was beyond hearing her, at that point. Beyond comprehending the words. Far beyond pointing out that she'd slightly misquoted Sandra Bullock in _SPEED_. Because Rodney Munson was about to take a bite out of a half-eaten Sloppy Joe.

"No…" he whispered, trying his damnedest to will the sandwich out of his hand and onto the floor, to take control of the situation. "No no no no no…"

"Uh, Willow? Maybe you were a little harsh, there," Buffy said, sounding worried. "I think you spooked him. And spooked Xander is kinda spooking me."

"Me? This whole thing was _your_ idea!" she accused, but looked back to watch her oldest friend stand up and back away, eyes wide and face pale. "Xander, wait! Please, we didn't mean -"

"**RRRrraaAAAAGHHHHH!"**

Both girls turned, Willow in surprise and Buffy ready to fight. Only, the roar wasn't demonic. A curly-haired boy with bits of food, and what looked like a shredded napkin, hanging from his braces stood up at his table with a look of pain, rage, and confusion on his face. The front of his shirt was wet, which probably had something to do with the crushed milk carton in his hand.

"Rodney?"

Buffy was about to ask how Willow knew this Rodney when he stumbled backwards, his legs not moving right. He couldn't stop himself from falling, and slammed into the cafeteria floor with a crash and a whimper. His legs kept moving with the momentum, bending him at the waist with his feet in the air. It was obvious to anyone that cared to look that his shoelaces had been tied together.

Another sharp noise had her turning again, even as Willow rushed over to help the groaning boy up off the floor. The cafeteria doors were just starting to close after someone had slammed them open a second before.

Apparently, Xander had decided their little talk was over now.

* * *

"This conversation is NOT over!"

"I might be wrong, Cordeila," Aura said blandly. "But I think running out into the hallway screaming 'I quit' over and over again means he's done talking. And all this time, I thought it was just losers and freshmen that crumbled when you yelled at them, who knew it worked on school employees, too."

"If he'd just done his job, I wouldn't have had to point out what a pathetic lump of polyester and B.O. he is. It's the 'Lost and Found'. _I_ lose something, _he's_ supposed to find it!"

"Right, except _you_ never told _him_ what it was he was supposed to find."

"Tell a mouth-breather like him about something like that?" she grimaced in disgust. "Hello, it's called privacy!"

"Maybe we could check the locker room again?" Harmony offered, timidly.

"Oh, of course!" Cordelia squealed with a huge fake smile. "Because five is the magic number of times we have to look before they'll just suddenly be there. How could I have forgotten that? Thank you, Harmony, where would I be without you to guide me?"

"It was just a suggestion…" she muttered, meekly.

"Here's a suggestion," Aura spoke up, stepping between them. "We give up looking and you just settle for what you're wearing now, I mean I don't even know why you want to do this now instead of waiting for the Spring Fling to show it off."

"'Settle'?" Cordelia echoed, dangerously, rounding on her friend. "I'm supposed to 'settle' for what I'm wearing? Aura, if the Chases knew how to settle, Gianni Versace would've spent last week stitching together another tea party outfit for his brat niece instead of handcrafting me a dress that makes the rest of his spring line look like something off the rack at J.C. Penny's. Now I am going to wear that dress when I make my acceptance speech at the end of lunch, so even the losers that skip the dance to wallow in their unpopularity get to see exactly why I'm Sunnydale royalty. **And **I'm not _settling_ for anything less than exactly what I picked to wear under it!"

"Okay," the other girl shrank back, not liking the venom when it was being aimed at her. "Sorry, you're right. I guess I wasn't thinking."

The future May Queen let out a mix between a sigh and a growl, actually sounding a bit more upset than she had before the apology.

"After I got home from the fitting in Miami Beach last Saturday, I spent the next day picking out everything I was going to wear along with it," she explained. "And, once I had it together, it stayed together. Not even the maid was gonna touch it, so I'd know it was all there and ready for today. And, since it was all there, I knew I'd just change out of whatever I was wearing right when lunch started. So… I… I didn't make the same… wardrobe choices that I'd make on a normal day."

"I don't get it," said Harmony, surprising no one, really. "What does having your outfit together have to do with anything? What different choice did you make?"

"Oh God…" Aura paled, suspecting the answer. "You didn't… Cordelia, are you wearing something you'd pick for a day when you were… expecting a visit from your Aunt Flo?"

"They're my most comfortable pair," she aimed for defensive, but wound up sounding miserable. "Now, do you get it? I **can't** wear them, they'll completely ruin the lines of my dress!"

"Why would your aunt make you wear special underw-" Harmony asked, before she was shushed loudly by the two other girls.

"There isn't any time to call home and have them bring me something," said Cordelia, worriedly. "What am I going to do?"

"Well… I have one idea. But I can't promise you'll like it."

"Aura, I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I'm not borrowing yours."

"No! Ew, no!" she squealed, almost as disgusted by the implication as she'd been by the corpse in her locker a few months before. "I meant you could just… you know, try going without."

"Hey, yeah!" said Harmony. "That's, like, the perfect solution. Plus, since it's a dress and you're outside, the breeze feels really good on your…"

The other girls just stood and stared.

"Not that I've ever done it or anything!"

"I don't know…" Cordelia said. "What if somebody sees? I mean, I saw that stage they set up, it's pretty high off the ground."

"And your dress falls far enough to cover everything," Aura reminded her. "We're not in Kansas, Dorothy, so there won't be a twister on the quad to blow up your skirts. And seriously, even if there was one, think about it. Can you honestly say that what you're wearing right now would really be better than nothing?"

* * *

Maybe it wasn't the best idea, but his current strategy of walking aimlessly through the halls at a fast clip seemed better than nothing. He hadn't stopped moving since he left, and the school was small enough that he'd probably done several laps by now. Everybody has their own coping mechanisms, and this was Xander's. Simple repetitive activity, the same motions the same way again and again and again, it rarely failed to soothe him when he was upset. He'd have preferred a tennis ball and an empty classroom, all things considered.

But finding either would've meant having to stop moving.

That's all it would've taken for the million thoughts running through his head to jump him all at once. This was the only way he knew to keep them in line, waiting for their turn to punch him right in the brain. His dumb, STUPID psychic brain.

The stake and the books last night, the fire hose this morning, they all had the same thing in common. Pure, knee-shaking, pants-wetting terror. He wasn't ashamed to admit… silently, to himself, that he'd been afraid. Giles said that self-preservation was the strongest natural instinct programmed into every living thing, and that the human brain was wired to do whatever was necessary to make that happen, even it had to ignore pesky little things like conscious thought.

The floating donut, soccer ball in gym class, even the jump rope that jumped itself off the table, he could explain those as things he'd wanted. Food on an empty stomach, giant helping of "duh," that could even fall under self-preservation instinct against starvation. But those other two, he'd wanted them on a different level. Proving to Giles that he had what it takes to train. Proving to everybody that he wasn't the loser Brad Konig made him look like.

But that, just now at lunch? What the Hellmouth was that about? Sloppy Joe day?

Rodney Munson wasn't Xander's favorite person, that curly-headed sociopath had finished destroying what little faith he'd had left in authority figures doing their jobs to protect him. But, after five years, anything can become routine. Anything. So, after a while, they got a system going. Xander would take a punch to the shoulder, take a dive and go into the fetal position, where he'd get kicked two or three times. After that, they'd both go on with their days. Rodney never took his money, and rarely took anything else. Once it'd finally stopped, he hadn't even thought about revenge. He was mostly just happy to have an extra 2-3 minutes of free time every morning.

Why, then, had he used his brand new Marvel Gir… er… Marvel Boy… Marvel MAN powers to pull off a rapid-fire assault of pranks that would've left his old buddy Jesse rolling on the ground, laughing himself sick? Better question, why couldn't he stop it when he'd wanted to? Hadn't he wanted to? No, of course he'd wanted to, it was a sandwich for crying out loud!

That's when it hit him. What if his powers aren't about what he wants? What if they're about what some part of him, deep down, feels like he_ needs_? He couldn't stop what was happening to Munson because, subconsciously, he really hadn't let go of the bitterness, the resentment for making him feel helpless for years. That part of his brain, the freaky new dangerous part, it was going to follow through whether he wanted to or not.

He started walking faster. His eyes darted back and forth, but they never focused on anything. The library. Giles had to hear about this. Everything would be fine, so long as he went straight to there and didn't let himself see anything that could make him use his powers. Out of sight, out of mind, after all.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Out of sight, out of mind. Almost there.

Out of sight, out of…

Out of…

Why is everybody laughing?

* * *

The noise of the students in the halls rarely carried to his office, one of the few benefits Giles enjoyed working for the American public school system, but now he had to wonder if he'd ever been so easily amused as a teen. Certainly not without some form of chemical assistance.

Doing his best to ignore the noise, he returned to his task of organizing his translation references in preparation for the arrival of a book that could be considered the Holy Grail of Slayer prophecies. Latin, obviously, he'd need every volume he had for that, from Archaic and Classic to Medieval and Vulgar, and even a smattering of Renaissance Latin, as the Pergamum Codex had been lost, or "misplaced," sometime during the 15th Century. But that wouldn't even begin to be enough. The prophecies within had been given in every language under the sun, and likely a few from the Underworld as well. He could trust the Latin translation, yes, but a single ambiguous word could change the entire meaning. He added several works on ancient languages and his largest book of demonic verse.

The Watcher's Council policy that dictated the book be sent to Headquarters immediately was completely irrelevant. Giles already had very good reasons prepared for why he shouldn't.

He was the Watcher to the Slayer, making the book more relevant to him than any other Watcher living. The Master working towards something and, despite thwarting him with the Harvest and Buffy's victory against the Anointed in the morgue, time was not on their side. Knowledge of the prophecies in the Codex could not be allowed to wait for a long trip to England. The timing could be a close thing as it was, considering he didn't even have the book yet.

And that brought him to the other, less noble, reason to keep things to himself. The Council would undoubtedly want to know where the lost document had been found, and how the Watcher had come to have it. The answer to both, that it had been found and delivered by one of the most infamous, mass-murdering vampires in history, would not be welcome. Any story of Angelus being given a soul and reformed by guilt and love for the Slayer would only make things worse, he feared. And earn him, at best, a reassignment or, at worst, a bullet to the back of his head.

All very good reasons, all primed and at the ready so he wouldn't have to admit to being giddy as a schoolboy at the thought of being the first Watcher to have a crack at the old book in centuries.

Reaching for another dusty tome, he was startled by the sound of the library doors slamming open. Giles stepped out of his office to see Buffy and Willow charge in and both begin to speak at once.

"You won't believe what just happened," they said, then looked at each other and continued, still eerily in sync, "I should go first."

Giles looked back and forth between them, very disturbed. Thankfully, when Willow spoke again, the words only came from one mouth.

"I need to go first. Mine's spooky, possibly Slayer-related," she insisted.

He was about to agree, but Buffy answered first.

"Mine is about Cordelia getting embarrassed in front of more than half the school."

"You can go first."

"But didn't you just say -" he started to ask.

"Buffy's going first!" the normally meek redhead shouted, making him take an involuntary step back. "Go ahead, Buffy."

"Okay, it's like this," the smiling Slayer said. "Cordelia was up on this stage they built on the quad, and she was giving her May Queen acceptance speech. She kept going on and on about all the reasons why she's so popular and why everybody loves her so much, going back as far as pre-school. Why I didn't just walk away, who knows? Maybe it was some kind of intuition but, when she grabbed the microphone and walked out from behind the podium, this big wind came up out of nowhere and lifted up her dress!"

"Oh my god!" Willow said, wearing a smile of her own. "How high up did it go? Was she able to catch it before anybody saw anything?"

"Both hands on the microphone like she was Stephen Tyler or something, there was no catching happening up there. And you won't believe what everybody saw! Underneath that designer dress, she -"

"Now that is **enough**!" Giles half shouted. "A divine calling to protect all humankind will **not **be set aside so you can indulge in schoolyard gossip. Now, Willow, please tell us what it is you discovered."

Both girls deflated, Willow looking especially ashamed of her behavior.

"I was at the nurse's office with Rodney, to make sure he was okay after what happened at lunch. When Nurse Greenleigh saw him, she said 'Oh Hell, another one?' I asked her what she meant, and she said students have been coming in all day for accidents. Larry Blaisdell was covered in bruises, he tripped over a fire hose somebody pulled across the hallway and the whole football team landed on him. Then, in Gym class, Brad Konig hurt his back when he fell after trying to kick a soccer ball and missing. Larry said he never saw anybody move the hose, just like Rodney never saw who messed with his lunch and tied his shoes together, and Brad swears the ball moved on its own before he could kick it."

"It 'moved on its own,' you say?"

"I didn't say it, Brad said it to Nurse Greenleigh and then she… Oh! You meant… Yeah, all on its own."

"Giles?" Buffy asked, cautiously.

"I hope that I'm wrong but, if I'm not, this could be something serious. Something that must be dealt with immediately. Willow, do you know of anything connecting the three boys? Anything they have in common?"

"Not much. I mean, I think Brad and Larry used to hang out before Larry started playing football, but Rodney always kept to himself most of the time. The only time I remember ever seeing the three of them together was when they were beating up…"

"Xander."

At Buffy's mention of the name they'd both been thinking, Willow and Giles looked first at her, then followed her line of sight to the library door.

There was fear in his expression, eyes wide and skin pale with an obvious sheen of sweat. Tiredness as well, breathing hard like he'd been running. But what it was the heartbreaking look of pure sadness that they'd remember most after he turned and ran back out the door.

"We've got to go after him," Giles said urgently to his Slayer, Willow having already gone chasing the boy.

"Wait, are you telling me Xander did all this? With his powers? I don't believe it, he wouldn't -"

"I'd rather not believe it either, but the fact is that it all fits! Last night, we find out he has the ability to move objects with his mind. Today, people who mistreated him are suddenly having 'accidents' involving objects that seem to move by themselves. Even the business with that Chase girl you all despise and her windblown dress, I'll bet you anything that Xander had something to do with that, too."

"But, it's not like he sent anybody to the hospital! All of it, especially what happened to Cordelia, it was harmless. That football jock has probably been hurt way worse on the football field, that guy in Gym shouldn't have put so much into his kick, and that thing at lunch, second graders pull those kinds of pranks on each other. Not funny, but he wasn't trying to hurt anybody!"

"Maybe he wasn't today," Giles said, solemnly. "I'd almost forgotten it myself, but these accidents didn't start today."

* * *

Auto Shop. Up to now, didn't think he'd spent more than an hour in this room his entire time at Sunnydale High. Checking the clock on the wall, he'd already doubled that tonight. It'd been a miserable time, and not because of the uncomfortable metal stool he was sitting on, or the lingering smells of motor oil and exhaust fumes.

He hadn't even had to bypass any yellow police caution tape to get in or anything. Why should he have? It'd been two days, after all. In a place like Sunnydale, even if somebody had died in here, the room would've been back open the next day. Just like nothing had happened.

Something had, though, hadn't it? He stared at one spot in the middle of the room. Cracks, crisscrossing back and forth like threads of a spider's web, from the impact of something a little too heavy for even the concrete to handle. What must it have sounded like when it fell?

"We've been looking for you."

Damn. He'd taken too much time stalling. If he'd known anything about Shakespeare, he might've considered a quote from the Scottish play, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." But he didn't know Macbeth from MacGyver, so he'd just sat there letting his mind play its tricks. He could've sworn he'd actually seen a pair of legs sticking out from that old Chrysler an hour ago, morbidly reminding him of a wicked witch smashed under a Kansas farmhouse. And several times, he'd heard footsteps pacing back and forth across the clearly empty floor. When he heard the voice from the door, he half thought he'd imagined that, too. But he had to look over when he heard her again, but barely turned his head to do it.

"You managed to get off campus without Snyder catching you. Impressive. Willow wasn't so lucky, but her straight A's saved her when her puppy-dog eyes failed. Even Giles couldn't get away, his cover story about sending you to earn some extra credit by picking up a magazines and newspapers for the periodicals section probably saved you from getting suspended, I bet his ears are still ringing from all the yelling about keeping delinquents on a shorter leash instead of letting them roam free among decent people."

"Can we not talk about this right now, Buff?" Xander said, softly. "I'd kind of like to be alone."

"By the time school let out, Giles drove us to your place to look for you there. Your dad wasn't happy that we interrupted his… Well, whatever he'd been doing, he wasn't happy he got interrupted and he told us you weren't home. From there, we went to the Bronze, Kingman's Bluff, Jesse's parents' house. They asked about you, wanted to know if you were okay."

"Just go, please…"

"We kept looking in places Willow thought you might go but, when she suggested we try Angel's apartment, I suggested we split up just in case _that _sign of the apocalypse didn't actually come to pass. So I had them drop me off here, hoping I'd get lucky. And it looks like I did. What are you doing here, Xander?"

"They say the killer always returns to the scene of the crime," he answered, with a sad smile. "Go away, Buffy. Just turn around and walk away, pretend you didn't find me."

At the word "killer," the slow approach Buffy had been making halted and her whole body tensed. She recovered, but not as quickly as she'd probably wanted to.

"Nobody died in here," she said. "And I don't know if I could even blame you if you were disappointed by that. Last night, I asked Willow if she could look up something online for me. People that get knocked out from a blow to the head, they don't always just get up a little later with a headache like in the movies. You could've had a concussion. You could've died. What I'm saying is I understand coming back, wanting to get even."

"No, you **don't** understand," he said. "**I **didn't even understand."

"Okay," she said, gently, and slowly started walking forward again. "Maybe you can explain it to m-"

"STAY BACK!" _**CLAAANGG!**_

They both jerked in surprise as a heavy wrench seemed to jump up from the metal cabinet it'd been lying on and slammed itself back down hard. It floated up again, hovering menacingly between them.

"Damn it, Buffy!" he shouted, turning to face her now but backing up, putting distance between them until his back hit the wall. "This is exactly what I **didn't** want to happen!"

"I'm not here to hurt you, Xander," she tried to soothe him, eyes pleading with him but still tracking the floating tool. "And I know you don't want to hurt me."

His arm moved and, for the first time, she noticed he was wearing a beat-up old army jacket she'd never seen on him before. His hand, hidden by his body up until he'd turned to face her, was in the jacket's pocket making a bulge that told her it wasn't in there by itself.

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?"

What cleared the dull green fabric, clenched tightly in his shaking hand, wasn't especially big. Smaller than a sword, or a crossbow, much smaller than any vampire or demon she'd ever fought but, to the part of her that was Buffy Summers from L.A., it terrified her in a way that had nothing to do with being the Slayer. She wasn't familiar enough with the terminology to be able to describe it with words like "snub nose" or "revolver."

To her, it was just a gun.

"Get out of here, now!" he said, sharply.

"Where did you get that?" she asked, so focused on the weapon barely heard the wrench clatter to the ground.

"Why? You want one?" he asked, chuckling a little in disbelief. "Sorry, Buffinator, this was the only one in stock. If you really want it…"

Right in front of her widening eyes, he brought the barrel up until it was pointed at his own temple.

"…you have to wait 'til I'm done with it, first."

"Xander? Wh-what…? Why?" Buffy stammered, completely off balance.

"I was there, this morning with Larry and the football team. Same with Brad and Rodney. But I wasn't here Sunday night."

"Wait, so you mean you didn't -"

"But I did! Because I wasn't with Cordelia, either. I wasn't watching, I was on the other side of the school when it happened. But I know it was me because I kept hearing from everybody how there wasn't any wind but her dress went up anyway, I heard _that_ more than I heard about what everybody saw _under_ it! Do you get it now? My brain, my _power_, it works whether I'm close by or a mile away. And I don't have to concentrate, I don't have close my eyes, I don't have to say any magic words, it just happens! Even when I don't want it, even when I try to **stop **it!"

"Giles, we can talk to him. He'll know something that -"

"I heard what Giles said in the library, and he wasn't wrong. This is serious, and so I'm dealing with it. I won't wait 'til after pull a Carrie on you with kitchen knives someday for taking the last slice of pizza on movie night. You think I want to live to see that? If I hurt Willow…"

He trailed off, the line of thought making him grip the pistol just a little tighter. Watching as his words sunk in, Xander didn't see the resigned acceptance he was hoping for, or even the fear and desperation she'd been showing before. If anything she was starting to look offended, maybe even a little annoyed.

"So, that's what this is all about? You scared you're gonna hurt us, _maybe __**someday**_, so you put a gun to your head?" she asked, calmly but without an ounce of sympathy, as she started walking slowly towards him again.

"This is how I make sure someday never comes!" he shouted back, more tense as she seemed to relax. "Just get the Hell out of here or -"

"Or what? Will you shoot me if I don't go?"

"I only put one bullet in the gun. If you don't go, you have to watch me use it. Don't think that's a picture you want in your head."

She kept moving forward, slow but never stopping.

"Trying to protect me from nightmares now, too? Don't bother, I get 'em anyway. Have been for years. And it's only gotten worse since I became the Slayer. Every time my head hits the pillow, I've had to watch girls my age fight monsters. Some won, some died. And I didn't know what they meant. Not until this old guy showed up and told me. But I didn't believe him at first. So you know what he did?"

Less than ten feet away. Xander's grip tightened so much it started to hurt. She didn't wait for an answer to her question.

"He threw a knife at my head. Not with his mind or anything, he used his hand. But it was still a knife, and it was still about to hit me right between the eyes. Me, Buffy Summers, little miss popular Freshman from Hemery High, never been trained to fight, never even heard the word vampire outside of movies with Gary Oldman or Brad Pitt. And yet, here I am, free of stab wounds to the forehead. Can you guess why?"

Five feet. He felt the barest touch of thin metal against his index finger, but he didn't put any more pressure there. His mouth was dry, so he had to work his tongue before he asked.

"Did you dodge it?"

"Caught it with one hand. That's why he threw it, to prove to me that being the Slayer wasn't about making a choice. It was already hardwired into me. And Merrick, my first Watcher, knew that I could catch it. Said I hadn't been in any danger because I was the 'Chosen One.' But still, he threw a knife at my head so I punched him, right in the face. Really hard, too, he got a bloody nose and everything."

He didn't flinch when he felt her fingertip pressing against his nose, and that probably saved his life, he just sat there, frozen. Even when he felt the fingers of her other hand wrap around the hand that held the gun.

"And, Xander, I'll be happy to punch you too if you ever throw anything at anybody you aren't supposed to. And it'll hurt but, sometimes, pain is how we learn."

Staring at each other, face to face, neither moved except to breathe or blink. And, even though both knew he couldn't stop her from moving his hand if she tried, nobody knew if he could pull the trigger fast enough to do the deed anyway. With only one shot, no pun intended this time, to do what he'd come here to do, he had to make her understand before she made him lose his nerve.

"I've always been a slow learner, Buff. If I hurt somebody with my powers before I learn how to control them -"

"That's not the lesson you need to learn. But, yeah, you're pretty slow not to get it by now. Especially after yesterday morning, that speech you made about all the parts of me that make up who I am. The part of me that's the Slayer, it means I can handle anything your brain can throw me. Literally. Even if I can't see it coming, I'll just hear it or feel it before it can get too close. Not to wound your pride but, as a scary monster, you rank somewhere above fresh-from-the-ground vampire but way below Amy's _mom_."

Actually, that did sting just a little bit. Evil witches can be scary and all, but Catherine Madison was a middle-aged lady with a pom-pom fetish, damn it.

"But, like you said, the Slayer is just one part of me. Even if you can't hurt that part, you can still hurt me. Hurt me worse than all the vampires and the demons ever could. And you will, if you pull that trigger. If you do this, you'll be hurting me and you'll be **killing** Willow. Was that a part of your plan? Is that how you're gonna protect us? By leaving us? By taking away our best friend?"

He felt her gently pulling at his hand, the barest pressure trying to lift it up and away from his temple. But the light touch was met with just enough resistance to keep his hand in place. She had one more card left to play.

"What about Marcie?" she asked, softly. "Isn't she calling you again tonight? Do you want her to have to talk to your answering machine? Do you want your dad to talk to her, tell her that you're not home like he told us? Do you really want me to walk out of here so you can use that gun to make the last and biggest mistake of your life, Xander? Do you really want me to leave you to that? Or do you want me to stay and make sure your new girlfriend gets to hear you say 'sweet dreams' before she goes to bed tonight?"

_Creeeaaaak-k-k._

They turned to see the door to the Auto Shop room slowly closing, all by itself, until it shut with a soft thud.

"That's what I hoped you'd say," said Buffy, watching with a relieved smile as Xander hit the latch that released the cylinder, letting the single bullet inside fall harmlessly to the ground.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I'm back, brothers and sisters. It's been a long time, no question. Frankly, sometime after my first attempt at writing this story, I took a look at my life and wasn't particularly happy with what I saw. So, aside from some beta work and a Christmas Parody story that nagged at my brain until I got it out, I took an extended break from writing stories. But I can honestly say that I feel I'm doing much better now. Employed, maybe not as consistently as I'd like, but happy for the work I do get. In a loving relationship with a wonderful woman who understands me like no other. Not quite in perfect health, but I'm getting there. And some of my convalescing time is a big part of what's allowed me to write. But I could've written anything, I suppose. I've got pages and pages of ideas, notes and dialogue, for Buffy and Buffy crossovers, and several other fandoms beside. But I couldn't abandon this story.

The reason I couldn't abandon it, aside from the fact that this story hasn't been fully told, is all the positive feedback I've gotten from those who read and enjoyed _He Can't See It_. I see every review, every PM, every story alert and favorite, and they kept coming and coming. Rarely a week went by when I didn't get something. So, as far removed from this story as I was, as soon as I decided I was going to get back to posting, I knew this would have to be the first new chapter. And, to be completely honest, I started to feel that old enthusiasm writing this that I haven't felt in more than a year. You guys have been patient, some more than others, but I appreciate the patient and impatient alike. Thank you, everybody. Over the next few days, I'm going to do my best to answer the reviews I've let slide, and stay on top of any new reviews that come in.

And, as I should do in every author's note I write for this, I have to thank **dogbertcarroll **for giving me the idea for this story in the first place. Brother Ted, I've taken your words to heart and every change I try to work into the story, and there were several big ones here that set up several more to come, will have lasting ramifications that will ripple changes through the… do we call it the Buffyverse? Whedonverse? I've never been completely sure about that. Either way, things are in motion, stay tuned to find out where they're headed.

Blessed be,  
-Brother Bludgeon


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